Something In The Air: The Paintings of Casey Weldon - Hi-Fructose Magazine

"Instead of stretching and distorting the human patrons that stumble into the labyrinthine funhouse, though, Weldon's work entraps American culture itself, reflecting images that amplify, twist, and invert the dynamics we otherwise inherently accept in our society and its rituals. His paintings feature beautiful women wearing headdresses adorned with bullets and cigarettes; gigantic humans dwarfing industrial surroundings rendered in toy-like miniature; and most famously, four-eyed cats that both attract and repulse, magic eye strains that at once reflect the euphoria"

"For an artist just now entering his mid-thirties, Weldon, who grew up in southern California and trained at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, has an astonishingly diverse and virtually bottomless output, from '80s pop culture tributes to portraits of beautiful, saucer-eyed women betraying glints of secret transgressions. The one common thread between so many of his paintings, however, is a compulsion to create playfully satirical or outright critical reproductions of a reality we might otherwise accept at face value."

""Nostalgia is a hard feeling to describe," explains Weldon. "I feel it when I see something I haven't thought about in a long time and it makes me happy and sad at the same time. I've been obsessed with trying to interpret and express that feeling." There are the more overt expressions of nostalgia in pieces like "AT-AT the Playground" and "Revenge of the Ross" featuring, respectively, Star Wars iconography and Joy of Painting TV show host Bob Ross"

Casey Weldon grew up in southern California and trained at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. His paintings trap American culture in carnival-like mirrors, amplifying and inverting familiar social rituals. Imagery ranges from beautiful women with headdresses of bullets and cigarettes to oversized humans dwarfing toy-like industrial scenes and four-eyed cats that oscillate between attraction and repulsion. Work channels '80s pop culture and portraits of saucer-eyed women that hint at secret transgressions. A persistent drive toward playful satire and critical reproduction of accepted realities unites diverse pieces. Nostalgia functions as a core influence and motivator for interpretation and expression. Specific pieces include "AT-AT the Playground" and "Revenge of the Ross" referencing Star Wars and Bob Ross respectively.

Read at Hi-Fructose Magazine - The New Contemporary Art Magazine