Asha Elana Casey In Coversation

Held on January 8, 2022 between Asha Elana Casey and Alani Nelson

AN: Thanks for taking the time to answer questions! Your time and insight is so appreciated. I wanted to start by asking how would you describe your approach to portraiture.

EC: When doing a portrait, if I’m painting myself for the orisha series, I do some research on that deity and try to pose in a manner similar to them. If I’m working on the godself body of work, I am choosing friends and family and I am asking them to imagine their godself. What colors do you gravitate towards, what symbology is important to you? And then I use the symbols prevalent in my work to hint at the spiritual. So I use rhinestones as a representation of soul/spirit inspired by a story in Zora Neale Hurston’s Mules and Men. I use mirror, gold, and silver as residue from my gold series and my exploration with my spiritual journey. The colors white, silver, the rhinestones, and glass are symbols that come from the work I’ve done with my own spirit.

I’m really drawn to this idea of kind of co-creating the god self with friends and family, how does that interplay of personal and external symbolism show up in some of the works?

I think we look at Mahari’s piece which is maybe the only godself piece in the show, she has a sequined snake in her work. Which Is really cool because it’s the first time I incorporated animals but I used the snake because it’s prevalent in her work as well

And I was also looking at her use of greenery as well. So I felt that by borrowing some of her symbolism it would make the portrait feel the most like her, so then when we look at it again, we can see the use of rhinestones, glass, and glitter which have become signifiers of my work.

How did representing the god self become a part of your work? what sort of external factors led your practice here?

I think it started in undergrad. I am honestly an abstract artist. I just happen to be good at portraits and I felt underrepresented and undervalued during my undergrad experience. I immediately shifted gears from geometric abstract to Byzantine art inspired portraiture because it was important for my self-esteem

to see myself as powerful. So my early work speaks directly about the white and black gaze and how my power changes in those environments in the literal scars that came from that experience. After I left that environment, the work changed substantially. The work became centered on spirituality that wasn’t Christianity, and I wasn’t focused on white or black spaces but gold spaces.

Then the spaces became silver and botanical as I dug deeper in the narratives of the deities I was making work about.

So I ended up taking all of my aesthetics and morphing them into a new one. The geometric abstract from my early work now lives as the mosaic tiles I use in my current work.

So I am using literal scarification of the canvas for the pain inflicted versus symbols of power and the gold dress as a symbol of power within. The backgrounds were white because of the white gaze and the figures also were painted in color because of this quote, “I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background”, Zora Neale Hurston. So it was a big shift from being hyper-conscious of whiteness to not centering them in the narrative at all.

Kesi in White Space

That’s an experience I think so many can resonate with. I wonder did that shift toward the spiritual cause the works to function in a new way, as something greater than art or perhaps embody the greatness of art?

So this piece, was one of my early prints from high school. This is at its core what my work looks like.

Geometric Abstract I do these patterns in my free time and I they are super fun for me, but when I felt like my humanity and my intelligence was on trial I felt that my language needed to shift. The work was larger than my meditative doodles, it became necessary for my work to represent something larger than myself. My work needed to be a signifier of power.

I understood portraiture as a signifier of power. That was a canon I wanted my work to exist within, subvert, and ultimately stand beside equally as great. So the portrait to me became super important as a power symbol. I knew it was important for the people I love to be immortalized and revered much like found in museums. So the underlying theme and idea in my work is healing, but I found a way to make it less abstract and more literal in how it’s applied in society.

It’s in these ways that I see portraiture and abstraction as radical acts In the black art historical tradition! Are there any artists that you see your work in dialogue with or working in the lineage of?

I’m like a firm believer that artists are just collages of the ancestors that proceeded them. In my case, abstractly I’m pulling from Alma Thomas and Jack Whitten which can be seen in my earlier work more clearly. I’ll post an example

You see the influence of Je Donaldson in my printmaking work more because I’m pulling from my older aesthetic but the Alma Thomas and Jack Whitten influence is prevalent to me in my use of mosaic tile. It’s a very similar visual language When it comes to painting the face, all I can say is I do my best. It’s harder to link myself to a portrait artist but I’ve loved the work of Aida Muluneh for as long as I could. I see that influence in my early work as well. As for my botanical references, I would not be where I am without Aaron Douglas. I look to him for my leaves. I think those are my main artistic influences. I’m also by and large a collage artist. Which is why I guess I said artists are just collages of their lived experiences and their predecessors.I’ve done collage work with my prints since high school.

Eloise Enthroned

I can definitely see you are pulling from rich, diverse sources of inspiration from across the diaspora. How do you see African and African American culture making its way through your work?

I think for me, African culture stems from the information I’ve gotten from learning about the Ifa tradition and then the African American culture comes from southern folklore and family stories. Things that I gather from reading about Hoodoo and Rootwork but also my family’s upbringing.

That storyteller, griot like quality is very palpable as well as the Ifa tradition. These forces resonate beautifully on the canvas. When I look at the works included in Traces of the Spirit I feel myself falling into this otherworldly space especially against the backdrop of 2021, I want to be there so badly! How would you describe the world your figures inhabit, what is that reality like and how do the figures maneuver in that world.

Asha, Eleggua and Ori I’m honestly still building it. I’m figuring out how the figures, mojo figures, and ancestral figures can live in the realm together. I think of it as a living cosmogram. Each type of figure represents di erent aspects of the world we live in, but backdrop is kind of like the universal place where they all convene. I haven’t figured out their day to day though. I would imagine that they all hang out together in some aspect though. Like in future series, I’m excited to have figures like Chattam Boy on Horse behind maybe a rendered realistic figure. I think ultimately the idea is that they are supporting and walking with you.

So it would look like ancestors with the god self. Orishas with the god self. I’m honestly still building it. I’m figuring out how the figures, mojo figures, and ancestral figures can live in the realm together. I think of it as a living cosmogram. Each type of figure represents di erent aspects of the world we live in, but backdrop is kind of like the universal place where they all convene. I haven’t figured out their day to day though. I would imagine that they all hang out together in some aspect though. Like in future series, I’m excited to have figures like Chattam Boy on Horse behind maybe a rendered realistic figure. I think ultimately the idea is that they are supporting and walking with you. So it would look like ancestors with the god self. Orishas with the god self.

PHYSICAL WORLD SPIRITUAL WORLD

Flower Gold