Reviews and Publications

Paintings

Etchings

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Vermont Sketches

Statement & Resume

Books

The Plain Dealer, review by John Canale,  January 15, 2023

Akron Beacon Journal, review by Anderson Turner, September 25, 2022

New Art Examiner, review by Doug McGoldrick, September/October, 2017, pg. 35,

Alternative Jounal, Canadian Magazine Cover 2016

Art Diversions, review by Amy Haddad, October 1, 2015

Chicago Tribune, September 10, 2015

Art in America, December, 2013

Hi Fructose Magazine, January 8, 2013

Journal & Courier, by Lauren Sedam, October 12, 2012

Chicago Tribune, review by Lori Waxman, July 28, 2011, pg. 62

Harpers Magazine, January 2012, pgs. 28, 31

Free Hugs Magazine, Yulia Kovalenina, June, 2011, issue 6, cover + pgs. 4, 49, 89-99, 128, 141

Maisonneuve Magazine, Spring, 2011, Issue 39, pgs. 52 - 55

Little Thing Magazine, February, 2011, vol. 16, pgs. 68 - 71

Juxtapoz Magazine, January, 2011, pg. 20

Orion Magazine, May - June, 2010, pgs. 16 - 21

Time Out Chicago Magazine, Lauren Weinberg, October 1-7, 2009, issue 240, pg. 47

Art review
Amy Casey
By Lauren Weinberg

Amy Casey’s new paintings are eerily devoid of humans and animals, but her 23 acrylics on paper and panel contain numerous signs of life. The artist began this series in 2007, inspired both by the economy and by apocalyptic dreams she’d had for a decade. The self-aware houses, small commercial buildings and factories she paints escape catastrophe by lashing themselves together with cables, hoisting themselves on stilts and stacking themselves atop each other. Their anthropomorphism is most obvious in Incoming (2009), in which the cable connecting a house to its unseen support snaps. As the helpless dwelling falls toward the ground, its contours warped to suggest the speed of its descent, two houses on stilts watch, their postures improbably conveying concern.

Casey’s masterful balance of realism and fantasy is what makes her paintings so charming and original. Though the Pennsylvania native lives and works in Cleveland, her buildings are the same late-19th- and early-20th-century structures found in Chicago. The colors of their exteriors—subdued blues and greens, dark red, salmon, myriad shades of brown—are pitch-perfect. In the best pieces, Casey renders tiny bricks and panes of glass with the precise detail of Persian miniatures.

The work falters when the artist discards such precision for obvious brushstrokes that blur her buildings and rubble, but given the size of “Uncertain Times,” Casey approaches her theme with an impressive variety of compositions and styles. In real life, we never feel so much affection toward artificial siding.

CAN Art Life Design Magazine, September 2009, pgs. 2, 8, 108 - 113

itsnicethat.com, by Matt Siber, September 14, 2009

Amy Casey

Guest posted by Matt Siber
14 September 2009
 

In my travels through Chicago’s biggest art gallery opening night of the year on Friday I came across these intriguing paintings by Amy Casey at Zg Gallery. I love the aesthetic of these paintings but there are also innumerable threads of meaning that can be derived from them.

The houses and buildings can be read literally as a commentary on infrastructure or urban planning. They could also be more metaphoric alluding to connections between people, homes, technology, etc. Her statement addresses issues of natural disasters and security.

Neko Case, Middle Cyclone, Album/CD insert, March, 2009

New York Times, April 14, 2008, pg. A27

Hi Fructose Magazine, Spring 2008, vol. 7, pgs. 12 - 13

Chicago
Issue 164 November 6, 2007
Amy Casey's paintings document the artist's love of both the urban landscape and small, twisted creatures. Inspired by natural and unnatural disasters, personal fiascoes, and the never-ending stream of bad news, a relentless mob of curious, plant-like creatures and other disasters have swarmed over the painted landscapes, threatening the creatures and life within. Like us, the creatures stumble through life as best they can, given their circumstances. Acting out of vulnerability, they try to create security but sometimes, like us, end up kicking their own asses. Casey is fascinated by the resilience of life — every disaster is followed by a rebirth, in which we hike up our boots, duct tape our lives back together, and try to cobble together a "plan b" out of what remains.

Juxtapoz Online, October 23, 2007

In Amy Casey's world, stilt-legged houses sway like kelp over vast, colorful sea-anemones or dangle perilously in the breeze from telephone wire tethers. The houses seem lost and precariously balanced like great giants too strange to avoid extinction, and the writhing sea creatures below reach up in desperate welcome. Her undulating highways lead nowhere and cars are abandoned. It seems like a world where the people have gone and the structures have been forced to live on their own, crafting themselves new niches in hopes of survival. It's also interesting to think that houses, taken slightly out of context, can seem so alive.

Time Out Chicago, Nov. 1 -7, 2007, Issue 140, pg. 72