Experimental Fusion: Asheville artist Casey Engel transforms emotion into physical form

When multimedia artist Casey Engel was growing up, she attended a special high school that specialized in marine biology. But as an adult, she leaned into her creative side and made a daring pivot toward a career as a mixed media artist. Engel channels emotion into spunky, unexpected works of ceramic and textile, among others. “A lot of things in science translate directly to my art practice,” she explains, citing the chemistry knowledge needed to create ceramic glazes and natural dyes.

Engel is originally from Pensacola, Florida, and graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago, where she focused on ceramics, fiber, and printmaking. Engel explains that while her alma mater would not consider itself a home for craft, the instructors emphasized the ability to teach yourself new techniques. “The foundations of craft are all over that place,” she says.

An appreciation of craft and other Southern Appalachian cultural traditions are what drove Engel to relocate to Asheville with her husband in 2015. “Being away from the South made me realize how Southern I actually am,” she notes. Since moving to Western North Carolina ten years ago, Engel has participated in several local residencies including Marshall’s Township10, The Bascom in Highlands, and Starfangled Press in Brevard.

Engel’s pieces are a reflection of emotion, and she’s often inspired by the words of poets. “Instead of an image flashing into my mind—which certainly happens sometimes—it will be a word that really grips me,” Engel says. Limbo, a woodcut pressing on Japanese paper, depicts a black-and-white inversion that strikes a balance between symmetry and abstraction.

Each of Engel’s primary mediums reflect a different approach to artwork. Her latest practice is what she calls “quilted painting,” which involves hand-dying silk with sponges and adding quilted texture. Dockside, for example, demonstrates the role that unexpected color and shading can play in an imaginative display of water and land. “For me, [painting] also immediately connects to my ceramics practice,” she says. “[Ceramics] have to go through a trial by fire—the paintings have to go through a trial by water.”

Engel says that when she’s checking out quiltwork by others, she always flips it over to examine the backside’s intricate patterns and stitching, so she makes sure that her quilted paintings display something special on the reverse. “Every single painting also has a backside composition that for me is just as important as the front. I don’t always get to suspend them, but when I do it’s really really exciting because they inform each other and they tell the story of the quilt,” Engel says. “I approach my practice with a lot of curiosity and experimentation.”

Today, Engel is a successful Asheville artist, showcasing her collections of hand-dyed and hand-stitched quiltworks, ceramic sculptures, and paper etchings at local galleries like Blue Spiral 1, Asheville Art Museum, The Bascom: Center for the Visual Arts, and more.

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To see more of Engel’s work, visit caseyengel.net