2022 MFA Thesis Exhibition

Deep in the heart of the Appalachian mountains, a trickle of a creek flows up a holler near the hillside I call home. We don’t live there now. Not really. Not with our bodies at least. But all of our wandering souls, as corporeal faces, are often drawn to a romanticized version of our rural origin. My journey, along with the nine generations of mountain folks preceding me, began in a corner of coal country on Upper Chloe Creek in Pikeville, Kentucky. It was here we lived within the paradox. An existential dissonance defined how we survived. Natural resources can grow into an area’s largest asset while also functioning as a catalyst for exploitation. 

I remain mindful of the environmental impacts of fossil fuels yet personally conscientious of economic and societal dependence, domestically and globally. Natural resources as provisions, and therefore the work, dwell in the space of inherent contradiction.

I mine the depths of personhood and the archival histories of place and industry for raw material. Allegorical paintings and found object assemblage activate bituminous coal as a medium. My work also uses drawing, painting, assemblage sculpture, performance, video and photography to investigate manifestations and implications of power. I focus on themes of gender, ecology, economy, and rural resources management. My work exists within an inherent paradox and I exhibit the resulting complexities of that research.

I ask: Does ethical reconciliation exist within an inherent contradiction? How do the nuances of contemporary mining practices aid understandings of prosperity and genocide? How might these investigations transform future concepts of energy and power?

Austin Casebolt (born 1994 in Pikeville, Kentucky), Parsons Fine Arts MFA 2022, is an American multi-disciplinary artist who lives and works in New York City. His work engages drawing, painting, assemblage sculpture, performance, video, and photography to investigate manifestations and implications of power. Casebolt focuses on industrial mining practices and nuclear energy and addresses themes of ecology, economy, gender, and rural resource management. This work exists within an inherent paradox and he exhibits the resulting complexities of that research.

Casebolt’s work has been shown in exhibitions at the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, Parsons 25 East 13th Gallery, Grace Exhibition Space, Ralph Center Gallery, Owensboro RiverPark Center, Jones Visual Art Center, Western Kentucky Botanical Garden, Transylvania Morgan Gallery, Webber Art Gallery, Claypool Young Gallery, Kentucky Folk Arts Center, Janice B. Gallery, McCall Art Gallery, and the Owensboro Museum of Fine Arts. 

In 2021 he joined the Board of Trustees at The New School.