Possessing a scholarly background in painting and an absence of street-based graffiti work in his portfolio, artist Casey Gray is a bit of an anomaly in the stencil art game. This position gives him a great vantage point as a painter as he is able to continue pushing the boundaries of high art while simultaneously exemplifying that, in the right hands, spray paint and stencil as a medium can be elevated and sublimely refined. He has worked to develop a somewhat interchangeable visual language, one that is extremely specific to his own aesthetic. It is through this complex gathering and layering of contemporary imagery that he is able to open up multiple potentialities and conceptual themes placed within the work.

For the selection of pieces featured in Style of Eye, Gray chooses to approach his panels with spray paint and hand-cut stencils as a method for uncovering new access points to traditional painting formats. He is actively exploring and reinterpreting the ideas behind landscape, portraiture and still life painting across more than 20 large-scale panels, brought to life with a stunning color palette and interesting juxtapositions of pattern and content. With definite nods to several historically significant schools of painting, Gray’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek take on proportion, visual structure, and composition are pleasing to the eye and keep the viewer on their toes with the twisting, layered narratives each frame contains.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Casey Gray’s work is manifestation of personal experience within the context of contemporary digital perspective. His desire is to create a visual language that explores the relationship between the fluidity of personal experience that is today’s contemporary social landscape and the effect that has on the way he perceives events and memories. Utilizing primarily spray paint and hand-cut stencils, his work combines complex color schemes, graphic imagery, geometry and decorative traditions into meticulously layered hyperbolic moments of order and chaos.

From the artist:

“There is a relationship between this fluidity and the immediacy of spray paint. It distances the artist’s hand from the work so what is being expressed is more a representation of culture and not the artist himself. As our experience becomes more entwined with technology and digital perspective, our culture becomes increasingly anonymous. My disinterest in traditional modes of representation allows for the freedom to work abstractly, which I feel best emphasizes this anonymity. The large majority of the world has been documented in one form or another, in a sense creating a palette for representation. For any idea that I have, there is an image already waiting that represents that idea. By using stencils, a particular image can travel through multiple works, representing something new each time. This shared perspective is the basis for how I approach my work.”

Casey received his MFA in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2010 and his BA in Painting & Printmaking from San Diego State University in 2006. He currently lives and works in San Francisco, CA.

______________________________________________________________________________________

 White Walls Gallery has worked for nearly a decade to exist as the premiere destination for urban art in the Bay Area. Combined with the Shooting Gallery just next door, this 4,000 sq ft space is one of the largest galleries on the west coast. Justin Giarla founded the gallery in 2005 with a commitment to furthering the urban art movement, drawing directly from street art and graffiti culture. Named for its plain white walls, the gallery takes a backseat to the real focus: the work of our artists.

Event Information:

Style of Eye, New works by Casey Gray

 Opening Reception – October 1, 7-11 pm

On View Through October 29, 2011

@ White Walls (www.whitewallssf.com)

835 Larkin St., San Francisco, CA