Systems of Reliance

The Jane Hartsook Gallery is pleased to present Casey Whittier’s New York City solo debut. Whittier composes her mixed-media work out of repeated, small units, adapting processes from a variety of craft disciplines to explore interdependence and the truths it reveals. Whittier focuses on apparent contradictions—for example, that we can be both resilient and fragile, or that something can be fleeting but also long-lasting. Whittier’s work shows that truth, like connection, can be multi-faceted.

Whittier links, loops, or weaves together discrete units of clay or fiber. This joining of separate units to create a larger composition symbolizes the interconnection inherent in our world. The individual components come together the way that one thought builds on another, friends and family members support a loved one, or elements of nature form a biome. Occasionally, Whittier will break a link or cut a thread. These alterations are simultaneously minor and transformative. They remind us that, despite the powerful resilience of the collective, individuals still have agency to create significant change. Plants and flowers are a recurring motif in Whittier’s work as metaphors for interconnection. Plants depend on their ecological networks just as tapestries depend on their threads or people depend on their communities. Pull out one thread—an important pollinator or a close friendship—and the whole system changes. The world is made of these systems of reliance.

Casey Whittier is an artist based in Kansas City, MO. She earned her MFA from the University of Colorado at Boulder and her BFA from Kansas City Art Institute. Recent exhibitions include: Daum Museum of Contemporary Art (Sedalia, MO; 2024), Index Gallery (Dayton, OH; 2023), and Craft Alliance (St. Louis, MO; 2022). Whittier has been a resident artist at Red Lodge Clay Center, the University of Florida, and ArtFarm, among others. She teaches ceramics and social practice at the Kansas City Art Institute, is the president of ArtAxis, and works with The Land Institute on their ongoing research into sustainable food and oilseed production.