Title
Serendipitous Self Portraits
Artist
Opening Reception
Exhibition Period
AP Space is delighted to announce the representation of Stanley Casselman (b. 1963) and his collection Serendipitous Self Portraits, works by the New York based artist who’s always pushing to reinvent and find new boundaries for painting.
Casselman shares a range of explorations over the past eight years, and this exhibition from September 5th through October 5th, will spotlight a scintillating spectrum of vibrancy, serenity, tension, opposition, and entropy endemic in his works. The artist’s work is informed by a wide range of subjects, including astronomy, physics, sound and words. Casselman’s paintings, where often intricate or sometimes sweeping fading forms collide with graphic precision such that it’s not only an uncanny juxtaposition but importantly to Casselman where one element informs the other that it’s different or special.
Alongside the exhibition, a short documentary Process to Possibility: the Art of Stanley Casselman will be debuted. Casselman, a technician and a pioneer of painting on silkscreen, reveals many of the processes to create his works. Art historian Dr. David Anfam and acclaimed artist, Ray Smith both weigh in on Casselman’s practice. Casselman’s distinction and notoriety as an artist through his technical precision arose in 2012 when New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz posed the challenge for any artist to fake a Gerhard Richter abstract. Given Casselman’s history with a squeegee, and although he had little interest in emulating his predecessor, he embarked to take the notion of Richter somewhere it had never been. Saltz, being overly impressed by what Casselman had achieved, wrote an article in NY Magazine, December 2012.
Moreover, after receiving his Bachelor of Arts at Pitzer College, Claremont, CA, Casselman had his solo exhibition debut at The Exhibition Space in New York City, curated by Maurice-Heyman Fine Art in 1986. Following this, his works have been exhibited in numerous galleries across the US and Europe and in museums and public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, Georgia Museum of Art, the Flint Institute of Arts, Borusan Contemporary, Coral Springs Museum of Art, the New Orleans Museum of art, and the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation. Most recently Casselman embarked on collaborating with esteemed fashion designer and Halston protégé Naeem Khan. Together they call themselves, KACE. In their union of two distinctive worlds, KACE bridges the gap between art and fashion, and ultimately transcends that gap. They thrust the viewer into a novel experience that defies simple definition. His works toes the lines of Abstract Expressionism and Pop, showcasing gestural strokes across a delicate mesh to examine the depth and visceral nature of the human condition. As he interrogates the metaphysics of our reality through color, line, and form, Casselman seeks to find and inspire the sublime.
Artist
Discover the transcendent world of Stanley Casselman, a visionary American artist whose luminous, multi-layered paintings invite viewers into a contemplative space between the visible and the unseen. Born in 1963 and based in New York, Casselman explores the intangible—spirituality, perception, and the architecture of consciousness—through meticulously crafted works that are both baroque in emotion and precise in execution.
Casselman’s unique approach to painting began in the early 1980s, when he first experimented with silkscreen as a medium. Utilizing the screen as a matrix of perfectly aligned threads, he pioneered a method of working from the reverse side, capturing fleeting energetic moments on a surface that is typically hidden. This process results in mesmerizing compositions that feel simultaneously spontaneous and deliberate, revealing an “underside” of painting rarely seen.
His works unfold through layers of gestural marks and radiant color, forming what he describes as a visual pursuit of higher consciousness. Grounded in the belief that abstraction is the purest path to truth, Casselman continues to push the boundaries of pigment and perception in a search for the sublime.
Casselman earned his Bachelor of Arts from Pitzer College in Claremont, California. His artworks have been exhibited internationally, with notable presentations at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Gazelli Art House in London and Baku, and Secci Gallery in Milan. His pieces are held in the permanent collections of institutions such as the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, the Flint Institute of Arts, and Borusan Contemporary in Istanbul. Prepare to be immersed in a world where material and immaterial beautifully collide in the work of Stanley Casselman.
