Casey Curran

Casey Curran received his BFA in painting and sculpture from Cornish College in 2006. Since then he’s been involved in numerous gallery and museum exhibitions locally and nationally. He’s completed several large scale public works in partnership with Skanska Architects and Mad Art Seattle. Casey was awarded the NY Sculpture Space residency twice, and has received awards in artistic merit. In 2008, he became a key collaborator in the internationally recognized performance art group Saint Genet developing large scale interactive sets. He is currently represented at Roq La Rue Gallery.

Casey received 2014 GAP Award funding to create a large-scale kinetic sculpture. The piece focuses on western religion and how it has shaped the American ethos. Using biblical mythology and a raw industrial aesthetic as source material, the work will embody both the core tenant and the modern day parable of the Tower of Babel. The work explores what drives our certainties about the world, and where the line between fanatical nationalism and personal responsibility begins. It asks questions such as: Do our individual endeavors trump those of national importance? Is adherence to duty integral to a functioning government, or are there other forms of social activism that can create a more equitable model?

Casey received 2010 GAP Award funding to purchase the head of a dead bison. He is extremely interested in the symbolism surrounding bison and how they relate to sacred and profane space, which is the focus of his next series Sacred and Profane. While researching bison, he found that this animal is extremely apt at describing and conducting a symbolic dialogue around the investigations of Emile Durkheim, who studied the dichotomy between sacred and profane space in relation to cultural and religious life. Casey is particularly interested in the way objects, spaces, and ideas are separated from the mundane and how they as the Totem come into creation.