Color Sickness promises to overwhelm

By Sophie Newman     11/12/13 6:00pm

Local artist Chris Cascio's new exhibit, Color Sickness, will be on display in the EMERGEncy Room Gallery in Sewall Hall Nov. 14 - Dec. 18 with an opening reception Nov. 14 at 7 p.m. By arranging an array of colorful scarves as a backdrop for fluorescently patterned paintings, Cascio said he hopes to create an atmosphere that is "provocative with sheer amount of color." 

The Thresher caught up with Cascio to discuss his latest undertakings.

The Rice Thresher: How would you describe your most recent work?

---

---

Chris Cascio: Some of it's in line with what I've done before, but this is a two-part show because I made paintings, but there's also a collection of silk acetate scarves that I've been collecting since 1999. Since I've got into eBay, it's been a lot more. And I've started to use some of the designs in my paintings. So, what I want to do here is hang the scarves like they're wallpaper, and then just show the paintings on top and cause a system overload of color. I also have two, large 54-inch canvases. There will be points where you can see the source material hanging on the same wall as the painting. My other work, previously, has been really monochromatic, and I do a lot of hoarding, or collecting, of images.

RT: I've heard you describe yourself as a "functional hoarder." Can you elaborate?

Cascio: This collection of scarves is kind of a functional hoard. Scarves are relatively cheap to collect. Nothing in here is Louis Vuitton or Gucci or Hermes, which you can definitely find on eBay, but I'm not interested in spending hundreds of dollars; I'm interested in getting hundreds of scarves for a dollar.

In the corner, there will be an installation of sorts that does have some less-functional hoarding elements. I've saved a lot of weird castoffs from the production of the paintings. When I come into a space, especially one this small, that I know I can overload, I tend to come up with ideas and throw them in. I can't say exactly what it is, but some stuff borders between being trash and being useful. It will be really colorful. After doing a lot of monochromatic work, I got super turned on to some paintings that have a lot of color, and then I went kind of overload and started thinking of color as this thing you can get obsessed with.

RT: Is there a message you are trying to communicate through your work?

Cascio: There's not a particular message, like injustice or gender issues. It's issues of hoarding or eccentric behavior. This show is overload in the sense of color, shape and overall magnitude, and less about the subject matter. Sometimes my subject matter can be really heavy or provocative. This is a little bit less provocative, but I want it to be provocative in sheer amount of color, which also relates to Color Sickness. Besides it being a sickness, like you need colors in order to survive, I want the space to have so much going on that it makes you sick, but not literally. I wanted to make it insane with really benign, but colorful stuff. Anytime I get let loose in a little room, which I like a lot, I go all out.

RT: Do you have a favorite piece in the collection?

Cascio: The two big canvasses are pretty powerful. The one I just finished last night, though, is probably my favorite out of these. It took a really long time. It started out with this idea that I would take a canvas and go across with an individual colored pencil line, and then another individual pencil line, until the whole thing was filled. I stuck to it, but it was over 500 pencils, and it took forever. And then I painted a pattern on top in fluorescent colors. It says what the show is saying

in one piece.

RT: Do you have any advice for aspiring artists in the Rice community?

Cascio: Man, you can't print what I would say. Well I went to art school, you know, with a big A. If you are the kind of personality that makes art in a way where it's obsessive and you can't stop doing it, then there's no cure for it anyway, so my advice is to just be smart about it. Keep plugging away. A lot of the things that are unpleasant about the whole business of being a professional artist are actually necessary, no matter how much you might want to say it's unfair. But I've mellowed out with age.

Most people do.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

---