Juxtapoz Magazine - Casey Bolding "Bloodstream" @ Karma, Los Angeles

"Using plaster and industrial paint in concert with oil, acrylic, and Flashe, the artist builds up densely layered surfaces which he then scrapes and reworks, excavating embedded imagery drawn from mementos, photographs, and art history. As personal as they are process-based, Bolding's paintings of landscapes and interiors are particularly informed by his childhood in the plains of Colorado, his longtime practice of graffiti writing in abandoned buildings and trains, and commercial faux-finishing techniques learned from his uncle."

"For Bloodstream, Bolding has created a suite of works that he describes as "mirages or scenes captured from the perspective of someone floating down the Colorado River," from the Rocky Mountains to the Mexico-California border. This traveler encounters the West in what Bolding calls a "post-historic haze" that blends the archetypal and the everyday."

"The dance between accumulation and reduction that forms many of the environments the artist depicts is reflected in his method. Canyons, carved into the earth over millennia through erosion, are rendered in Shell game (2025-26) through layers of cement and plaster, their cliffs dense with marbled strata. In the foreground, a robed figure, his face all but worn away through Bolding's abrasion, seems to dissolve like the time-worn medieval icons his form suggests."

Casey Bolding's artistic practice combines multiple materials and techniques to create layered paintings that materialize memory. He builds surfaces using plaster, industrial paint, oil, acrylic, and Flashe, then scrapes and reworks them to reveal embedded imagery sourced from personal mementos, photographs, and art history references. His work draws from childhood experiences in Colorado's plains, extensive graffiti writing practice in abandoned structures, and commercial faux-finishing skills. For his Bloodstream series, Bolding depicts landscapes as viewed from the Colorado River, presenting the Western landscape through a "post-historic haze" that merges archetypal and everyday imagery. His method mirrors geological processes of accumulation and erosion, with works like Shell game rendering canyons through layered cement and plaster, while Cloud seeder employs sewn canvas seams and oxidized paint to create naturalistic effects suggesting water and time.

Read at Juxtapoz