Bio

Kasey Ramirez grew up at the edge of the pine barrens in Jackson, New Jersey. 

Her prints and drawings explore the tension between stability and impermanence, rendered within vulnerable architectural structures placed in environmental extremes. She holds an MFA in Printmaking from Indiana University and a BFA in Illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design. 

Kasey’s recent exhibitions have been at Rosewood Art Gallery (Dayton, OH) and Tarble Arts Center (Charleston, IL). Her work has been included in several group exhibitions, with recent showings in Georgia, New York, Massachusetts, Colorado and New Jersey. Upcoming solo exhibitions will be presented at Western Illinois University Gallery and the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts (Lubbock, TX).

Kasey has held several artist residencies, including the Hambidge Center, GA; Collar Works Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency, NY; and Guanlan Original Printmaking Base Residency in China. She is the recipient of the Artists 360 Project Grant, Vermont Studio Center Artist Grant, The Built Environment (First Prize) and Instructional Enhancement Grants from the University of Arkansas.

Artist's Statement

My work explores the tension between stability and impermanence by placing architectural structures in consuming environments. In the wake of increasingly frequent severe storms, and having direct experience with Superstorm Sandy, my personal sense of vulnerability connects with the impending tipping point of climate change. In my drawings and prints, buildings become a stand-in for human efforts for protection that are ultimately vulnerable to environmental extremes. I enjoy the alchemical properties of printmaking—how the surface of wood can become air, to be at once an assertively flat surface and a spatial, breathing image. I find the processes of physical erosion or destruction resonate with the features of these disasters. I also make drawings to explore this sense of devastation and looming atmosphere. By using charcoal, soot, and other organic residue in these works, the drawings reference their subjects—oppressive air, water, or destructive fire. I seek to create a sense of time and turmoil through repeated gestures of accumulation and removal.