MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
July 31, 2023
This week we recognize Christine Cassano and her work, which is a synthesis of scientific research and metaphysics.
“Permeable Facades and Internal Alterations,” 2015 (above) was a walk-in art installation of alternating, suspended panels of industrial and organic materials. The space in between materials expose variations of external facade and internal experience. Inside becomes intimately engulfed in a circular sea of translucent blood-red, 150+ hand-formed porcelain bones and countless mirrors which cascade moments of intense visual movement and self-reflection. Sentences subtly wood-burned into suspended pieces of Saguaro cactus ribs can only be viewed from the interior. They are hand-carved written connections provided by friends and family recalling a singular moment that changed their life.”
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Cassano's practice is rooted in the visual expression of dynamic systems, exploring ways to bring complex, overlapping ideas into a shared environment through the convergence of resonance, pattern, time, and space. “Tethered Tensions,” 2017 (above) is an installation presented at the Phoenix Art Museum, composed of 500 feet of the artist’s own spun hair and held together by hundreds of small mirrors is tethered to six futuristic concrete sculptures in a 15 x 17 foot room. The work offers the audience an immersive space to consider ominous reflections, tensions and the fragile counterbalance between humanness and ecology.
“Sequence and Conjunction,” 2020 (above) a lobby installation in the Wexford Biomedical Campus / Innovation Center: A collective of two intricate groupings – both composed of 116 strands and suspended from a black ceiling. Exploring DNA genomic sequencing of the Saguaro cactus became the way to engage the relationship of interchanging materials, colors and moving alignments that merge and connect with the movement of the sun, air and one’s physical movement throughout the space – each conjunction enabling new formations to appear. Many architectural elements of this new biomedical building were inspired by the Saguaro cactus. I met with Dr. Wojciechowski, an evolutionary biologist at ASU and member of the Saguaro Genome Project, to learn more about genetic sequencing of the Saguaro for this project. Anchored by Arizona State University, Wexford’s PBC Innovation Center is a 226,000 square-foot research and office building designed to expand ASU’s research footprint in downtown Phoenix and facilitate growth of the private sector in bioscience and health technologies.”
“Degrees of Granularity,” 2021 (above) is a sound sculpture installation and collaboration between Cassano and Shomit Barua. 500+ hand-formed pieces of paper-thin, translucent porcelain are delicately stacked on top of a black mirror. The motion reactive audio is derived from the friction of these bone-like pieces.The individual shape, weight and texture causes their edges to catch; their arrangement requires balance, and then they rest with precarious density. The noise they make when they shift is both corrosive and harmonic—sometimes their edges crack, crumble and deteriorate, other times they resonate and ring. While this sculpture exists for the moment in a delicate stasis, the inevitable rearrangement over time will grind the porcelain into dust.”
“Quadrivium,” 2023 (below) is an installation created to be touched and engaged from above, from below and 360º as it is here on display at Form & Concept Gallery in Santa Fe, NM. This suspended installation includes 49 bronze noēma and by activating with a gentle push, the viewer assists with composition of sound and arrangement while engaging with mediation of rhythmic movement within a three-dimensional context. This creates a space where matter, energy and vibration connect and a place to be completely present. “Quadrivium” is the Latin word meaning “where four roads meet – a crossroads” and references a curriculum established during the Renaissance consisting of four subjects: Arithmetic, Geometry, Harmonics & Astronomy.”
Cassano also makes paintings including, Universal Algorithms, 2021 (below). "I use signal / sound waves created by our natural world to create paintings. These include seismic, gravitational wave signals and various electromagnetic frequencies recorded on earth and in outer space. Using sound equipment, these signals are converted into a vibratory source and applied to the panel surface. I then take the organic noēma forms I create and dip them into paint. The forms are placed on the panel and the vibrations carry them across the surface. What emerges are visible patterns created by resonance. Once dry, paint patterns serve as point pivot guides for pencil and other drawing instruments as I interconnect their patterns to create larger formations."
Christine Cassano is an interdisciplinary artist whose work is informed by research in science and metaphysics and made accessible to audiences through objects, sound, and environments. She holds a fine arts degree from Virginia Commonwealth University and Old Dominion University. She is a recipient of the 2018 Artist Research Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2016, she was awarded a Contemporary Forum Artist Grant with exhibition from the Phoenix Art Museum, supported in part by the Nathan Cummings Foundation Endowment. In 2015, she was awarded a residency at the University of West Georgia which included an interactive, community-based installation project that is now part of the college’s permanent collection. That year she was also a recipient of the Phoenix Institute of Contemporary Art Grant, resulting in a published artist catalog of her work. Her work was recently reviewed by Hyperallergic. christinecassano.com
Featured images (top to bottom): ©Christine Cassano, Permeable Facades and Internal Alterations, 2015, exhibited at Tempe Center for the Arts; Tethered Tensions, 2017, mirrors, concrete, hair, exhibited at Phoenix Art Museum; Sequence & Conjunction, 2020, ceiling lobby installation at Wexford Biomedical & Innovation Campus - Public Art; Degrees of Granularity, 2021, porcelain noema stacked on mirror, sonic sensors, technology hardware + software components (internal), 36 x 96 x 16 inches, exhibited at form&concept gallery; Quadrivium, 2023, spun hair and bronze, 252 x 72 x 72 inches, exhibited at form&concept gallery; Universal Algorithms, 2021, acrylic paint, colored pencil, sound / signal vibration, 48 x 96 inches, in collaboration with sound artist, Jimmy Peggie;Portrait of artist in her studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
