Red Sky in Morning

Kasey Ramirez
 
East Gallery: June 24 – July 30, 2022
 

Opening Reception: Friday, June 24, 6:00 – 8:00 pm

Virtual Artist Talk: Friday, July 8, 6:30 pm, Moderated by Matthew Best

My work explores the tension between stability and impermanence by placing architectural structures in consuming environments. In the wake of increasingly frequent severe storms, and having direct experience with Superstorm Sandy, my personal sense of vulnerability connects with the impending tipping point of climate change. In my drawings and prints, buildings become a stand-in for human efforts for protection that are ultimately vulnerable to environmental extremes.

I enjoy the alchemical properties of printmaking—how the surface of wood can become air, to be at once an assertively flat surface and a spatial, breathing image. I find the processes of physical erosion or destruction resonate with the features of these disasters. Recently I have returned to the immediacy of drawing to explore this sense of devastation and looming atmosphere. By using charcoal, soot, ink, and other organic residue in these works, the drawings reference their subjects—oppressive air, water, or destructive fire. I seek to create a sense of time and turmoil through repeated gestures of accumulation and removal.

BIOGRAPHY

Ramirez' work has been exhibited at the International Print Center New York, The Morgan Conservatory in Cleveland, OH, 21C Museum in Bentonville, AR, Rosewood Arts Centre Gallery in Kettering, OH, and the Center for Contemporary Art in Bedminster, NJ. She is a recipient of an Artists 360 Grant from the Mid America Art Alliance, for which she is pursuing research on climate change and hazard mitigation efforts to inform her work. She has participated in artist residencies at Collar Works Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency in Granville, New York, Vermont Studio Center, as well as Guanlan Printmaking Base in Shenzhen, China.

Born in New Brunswick, NJ, Kasey received an MFA in Printmaking from Indiana University and a BFA in Illustration from Rhode Island School of Design. Ramirez lives and works in West Hartford, Connecticut, where she serves as Assistant Professor and Head of Printmaking at the Hartford Art School.

Ramirez CV 6-2022

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