CASEY GRAY
Appetite for Life

August 31 to September 24, 2017

Ampersand is pleased to present Appetite for Life, an exhibition of new works by San Francisco artist Casey Gray. The show features five paintings on panel that represent Gray’s signature style, each a masterful example of his diverse image sets—stylized cork boards and cabinets of curiosity; dense groupings like ad hoc mobiles or teetering naive sculptures; opulent floral vases that, like nature itself, display the very best of his sense for color and arrangement. At center, however, are 20 experimental works on paper that mark a shift toward geometry and texture and a focus on surface rather than image and depth. The pieces are, Gray notes, the antitheses of his large scale paintings, graphic and minimal versus realistic and maximal, full of competing textures and surface treatments. New to his medium are speciality aerosol acrylics designed to mimic the crackle of ceramic glazes, the grit of rock and stone or the polish of marbled and metallic surfaces. In the hands of the artist, though, they become something entirely different. Each painting is visually unified by an assortment of familiar culinary themes and food types, an homage, he says, to his favorite ingredients and dishes as an aspiring home chef. As such, the works are certainly diaristic, yet remain universal in their reminder to enjoy life’s simple pleasures, food foremost among them.

Casey Gray lives and works in San Francisco, California. He received his MFA in 2010 from the San Francisco Art Institute. Recent exhibitions include Wave Pool at Park Life Gallery in San Francisco and Abundant Plains (with Clark Goolsby) at Circuit 12 Contemporary in Dallas. 

Petit Déjeuner (print), 2017
giclée print on 192 gsm enhanced matte paper
hand screened semi-gloss spot varnish
edition of 20
14 x 11 inches