AUSTIN CASEBOLT | CANARY
High Noon Gallery, 124 Forsyth Street, New York, NY 10002
In painting terms, the colors black and white indicate the presence and the absence of light, in his New York solo debut exhibition, multi-disciplinary artist Austin Casebolt (born 1994, Pikeville, Kentucky), pushes this binary to its breaking point, instigating and transcending the inherent contradictions around an object that simultaneously comprises his medium, subject matter, and content: bituminous coal. This excavation of coal is done through the mobilization of light as a medium, both in photographic processes and in the creation of surfaces that absorb and reflect ambient light.
A series of entirely new works from Casebolt assemblages rendered in tar, coal and paint on panel, and photograms, expose through their distinct visual poetics of humanity’s fraught dependence upon coal mining and the ambiguous understanding around this precious resource. Both taken wholly out of context and situated firmly in the coal belt of the American South, the works operate as vignettes of microscopic and monumental proportions.
The surfaces of Casebolt’s tar and coal assemblages are at turns confrontational and vulnerable, evoking volatile fragility, implicit violence, economic and ecological effect, and luxurious abundance that the materials suggest and embody in metaphor and reality.
The irregular coal fragments suspended in frozen pools, splatters and ripples of tar, produce a sensation that suggests both sinking and rising. This suspended motion echoes the temporal, sensory, and emotional limbo that underpins the work itself.
Casebolt’s photograms, conversely expand upon and complement the coal-tar works to include scenes of rural iconography, set against the light-resistant coal—rendered white through its opacity, the mineral’s obstinate refusal to permit light to pass onto the photosensitive surfaces—hurtled from the cradle of subterranean mines to the jarring presence of light, the works endure a startling return to specificity. As neither the materials nor their referent exist in isolation, together the assemblages and photograms produce a push-pull catch and release, a reflective space to consider humanity’s relationship to the ecological and economic forces inextricably tied to coal mining.
Casebolt’s work has been shown in exhibitions at High Noon Gallery, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery, Shelia C. Johnson Design Center, Parsons 25 East 13th Gallery, Owensboro Museum of Fine Arts, Ralph Center Gallery, Owensboro RiverPark Center, Jones Visual Art Center, Transylvania Morgan Gallery, Webber Art Gallery, Claypool Young Gallery, Kentucky Folk Arts Center, Janice B. Ford Gallery, McCall Art Gallery, and the Western Kentucky Botanical Garden.
Austin Casebolt | CANARY is curated by Chelsea Steinberg Gay
About High Noon Gallery
Founded by Jared Linge in 2017, High Noon Gallery advocates a model of promoting and selling artwork that is pro-growth and collaborative. High Noon works with other galleries, non-profits, and institutions to introduce clients to outstanding exhibitions, while promoting artists through commercial and non-commercial avenues. High Noons roster is comprised of promising emerging talent as well as established artists collectively belonging to major collections such as MoMA, the Broad, LACMA, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and others. Through our exhibitions and projects, we facilitate bringing new or under-recognized artists and their vibrant perspectives amongst the discourse of contemporary art to a deserving market, while embracing the malleable, collaborative future of the art world.