ABSURD SURVIVAL

My main body of work is made using acrylics on panel with supplementary pieces in screen print and drawing. The paintings are executed with different techniques to add emphasis to an object’s meaning. Within one composition you can have trompe l’oeil, imposto, graphic, and surreal elements to mirror our complicated world.

The work is based on a hypothetical apocalypse and the moments of survival because of it. I take inspiration from our current world situation and the anxiety that surrounds its vulnerability. The fears of our future have been explored through sci-fi and horror film, which is important to the timeline of events in this surreal landscape. Our growing dependence and infatuation with popular culture is parodied to reflect our modern evolution or de-evolution.

In the “shelter site” series, I am showing the living spaces of individuals going through the survival process. These landscapes, filled with found objects placed in still life configurations, are put together in person and on the panel. The confusing collage of objects is meant to reflect the duress of the subject and the reality of existence under such circumstances.

Other moments in my paintings can be seen as snippets of challenge, often characterized by a humorous Sisyphean struggle. The high-lighter drawings are made with office materials, the very ones used at the desk where the computer sucked you in. The screen prints are handouts and coupon sheets that have been used as warnings or helpful data on survival. Taken as a whole, my images question the world that might become, or already is; it draws on the diametrically opposed feelings at a world’s end or hope for a future.

Cassey Criddle

Casey Criddle (b. 1991) is a conceptual artist living in Richmond, Virginia. She grew up in suburbian Hampton Roads, Virginia. In 2009 she went to Virginia Commonwealth University. Her freshman year she became an ambassador for the university in an abroad program to VCU Qatar. She graduated cume laude in 2013, with a BFA in Painting and Printmaking. Shaped by her childhood spent in the woods, obstacles faced during travel, and the current world attitude her collection has evolved. Using the internet and vintage survival guides in her work simultaneously. Ideas and situations are illustrated in a variety of painting textures that came from the mass of influences present today. In 2017 she was featured in New American Paintings issue #130. Currently she works out of her studio at Shockoe Valley Mfg.