THE CAN FOUNDATION PRESENTS SM/ NYC: ROUGH DRAFT, A SOLO EXHIBITION BY THOMAS O’CASEY
June 3- September 3, 2023
Join us at Assembly on June 3rd at 7 pm for the opening reception of SM/NYC: Rough Draft, a solo exhibition by Thomas O’Casey. The exhibition will feature 2 and 3d drawings, paintings, and wooden and found object sculptures made on the coasts of the United States. SM/NYC is an overview of over forty years of Thomas O’Caseys career.
The exhibition will be on view from June 3rd to September 3, 2023.
Thomas O’Casey is an artist and art historian based in Virginia. Born in Pasadena, California, he spent much of his life on both coasts of the United States studying and working in and around the art and entertainment world. His work, like his life, is heavily influenced and inspired by location and relationship.
In 1961 O’Casey attended the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design where he studied painting. He enrolled at The Chouinard Art Institute in 1965 , a leading professional art school in Los Angeles, founded in 1921 by Nelbert Murphy Chouinard. At Chouniard, O’Casey studied under and alongside master artists like Emerson Wolfer, Matsumi “Mike” Kanemitsu, and Jack Goldstein. After graduating from Chouinard, he spent a decade as an assistant to Nicholas Wilder, a premier art dealer and gallerist of LA that curated and dealt works of giants like David Hockney and Ed Ruscha. During his time with Wilder, O’Casey was heavily involved in the execution of exhibitions of masters like Cy Twombly and Agnes Martin, to name a few. Additionally, he worked in various capacities for Wilder’s East Coast counterpart, Leo Castelli.
Throughout the 70s O’Casey dealt in artist management with Geffen-Roberts and Stax Records, assisting a roster of music greats like Issac Hayes.
He went on to organize and curate exhibitions for Rocketdyne (a subsidiary of North American Aviation) for the next 10 years. He spent an additional 20 years curating and managing exhibitions for NASA.
A co-founder of the CAN, O’Casey is currently a studio artist and art historian based in Virginia. His work is influenced and inspired by the locations in which he lived and traveled. From the deserts to Carmel, Big Sur, Monterey, and San Francisco in California, to NY, DC, and Virginia on the opposite coast, the places, and the materials found within them, informed his work. Amidst all the travel, studies, and making, there existed relationships and connections; personal associations with art world giants who acted as models to O’Casey and taught the artist about discipline, greatness, and how to approach ideas and turn them into meaningful works of art.