In my paintings I am exploring different ways to visually describe skin, the edge, the line that defines the figure from the ground. I am thinking a lot lately about the Buddhist idea that seeing ourselves as separate from others and our environment is the source of all human-caused suffering. When we see beyond that separateness, we can begin to feel empathy for others and to care for our environment, and from there healing can begin to take place. The air we breathe, the food we eat, the ideas we take on, all affect our state of being and make us who we are. What happens to our environment and to others directly affects ourselves. We are permeable. Really there are no lines in nature. The lines between me and my environment and me and you are just an idea. — Christine Casarsa 2020
After a period of doing mostly abstract paintings in the lineage of the Abstract Expressionists, Christine is creating a body of work that incorporates the human figure. She plays with the image of the figure melting into the background and slowly emerging from it while at the same time both images exist essentially in the same plane. Christine’s work has been described as “wonderfully radiant..combining the figurative expression with the freedom of abstraction.”
Christine Casarsa is a painter whose work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in the U.S., and is in private collections in the US and abroad. She received a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design, and continued her studies with Sam Feinstein, student and close friend of Hans Hofmann, in New York and Cape Cod, Mass. She now paints out of her studio in the Berkshires. Christine is also a graphic designer, published book author and a mother of three.
