I recently headed down to the River North Gallery district to checkout the Gregory Jacobsen show “Balm of Body, Spice of Flesh” which is a pretty cool show well done and interesting; however when I looked into what was hanging in the office gallery my heart stopped for a second. It was work by Cleveland based artist Amy Casey, from a series she has been working on for over ten years, there’s a great story that goes along with the series. In the story the earth has been taken over by plants, in early pieces people start building houses on stilts to escape, then as time goes on the structures get higher and higher, piled on top of each other until there is no evidence of the ground in the work. The level of detail in these paintings is truly remarkable, kind of a Rodger Brown feeling about the execution of the buildings. All the buildings are based on real buildings in Cleveland but kind of have an any place USA feeling about them. The buildings in the most recent work are stacked haphazardly on top of each other in impossible loops and twirls, kind of like Brazilian favelas meet M.C. Escher. The work is done in acrylic on paper, Amy’s show will be the season opener at Zg Gallery and opens September 8th. I will for sure be back that evening to check out even more of her work on display. Prices start at $2000.
Doug McGoldrick
Volume 32 no. 1 September/October 2017 p 35