Casey Gray’s Recipe for Survival (2020) alludes to this still life tradition, and he inventively exploits the inherent flatness of spray paint to offer a contemporary meditation on being and finding one’s purpose and spiritual sustenance in these challenging times.
Gray’s compositions begin with digital collage studies, which incorporate a variety of found source material that the artist then manipulates in order to adjust scale, palette, and composition. The final result is then sketched out by hand and spray-painted. Describing his process, Gray notes, “This tension between the digital and the handmade, and exploring the perceived overlap of the two, is reflected in multiple facets of my work. It is the conceptual foundation of my personal philosophy towards making. I believe the definition of art is the organization of experience, and my work is a testament to this idea.”
A meditation on self-reliance in the twenty-first century, Recipe for Survival expresses Gray’s belief that “hard work and a meaningful relationship to nature are essential requirements for maintaining inner peace and overcoming extreme hardship, whether that be a global pandemic or a personal misfortune.”
Watch Gray paint a pear.
The “recipe” of the work’s title calls for a large selection of “ingredients”—everyday objects chosen for their symbolic potential in relation to the relevant theme of survival in the year 2020. In addition to such essentials as firewood, a hatchet, and a skillet, Gray also includes diverse references to art, beauty, and nature—in order to survive these challenging times, we also require artistic and spiritual nourishment. In the center of the composition, a digital tablet with a cracked screen displays a traditional fruit still life, representing technology’s inability to provide a substitute for real-life experience. In the upper left corner, a gardening glove points heavenward, a monarch butterfly landing on the tip of its finger, signaling the importance of our connection to nature and the divine.
- Lauren Palmor, Assistant Curator of American Art
Unfortunately, the de Young had to close its doors to the public again only six weeks into the run of The de Young Open. Learn more about how our staff organized the exhibition, and explore some of the artworks acquired from it. We are thrilled to announce our intentions of making The de Young Open a triennial event.