About

Casella_TimeCritterBricks — Casella Time Critter Still 1

“When I was about six, I came to the realization that I would grow old and there was a very likely chance that I would forget what it was like to be a child as an adult. So for many specific incidents, memories, thoughts, and dreams from my early years, I recalled over and over in my head so I would not forget. It is a lot of ridiculous weight to put on oneself. That resulted in fascinations about how the past effects peoples’ current states of being, how people hold secrets, and how that effects the mind/body.”

Incorporating Photography, Video, and 4D installations, Emily Casella’s Ceramic Sculptures examine how people obsessions with past occurrences, 2D records, and media affect our ability to function in society three-dimensionally. Her work examines the tension of the present whether that tension is in relationship to the past or future. How the mind’s perception of the world affects how people function in the world three-dimensionally.

Emily Casella is an Educator and Artist with an MFA in Ceramics from Herron School of Art and Design and a BFA from Indiana University Northwest.

Growing up in the early 2000s there was a lot of sheltering from surrounding neighbors and being part of a Montessori school, anything outside the immediate world around her was found through television, books, and then the Internet in 2008. During undergrad she investigated how television can create mental ideas about life, creating the installation of Absorption Preserve 2016. Watching the beginnings of YouTube, and participating in it herself from teenage-adult life, the idea of socializing virtually was not something new. Now the world is catching up with Social Distancing due to the pandemic of 2020.

Park of Infinite Connections 2019, her MFA Thesis examined individuals’ attitudes and relationship to being social, virtual connections, and being remembered. Inspired by Irrealism, Emily created unique figures who reveal particular human emotions and beliefs that are caused by an awareness of the present, past, and/or future. The Ceramic People are grounded within the rules of the 21st century, with small aberrations to critique and question what humans have invented for themselves. Her work plays within the internal and external worlds that individuals simultaneously live.

If you would like one of the Ceramic People or an Installation to be shown at your school/library/museum/art gallery/public building/establishment email Emily to schedule emilyjcasella@gmail.com

Currently she working on a project with the theme Unraveling. More to come soon!

When she is not covered in a clay or teaching college art courses, she tends to photograph collections and create metadata for the Museums’ Archives, Galleries, and Libraries.

You can follow her elsewhere: Instagram @Emybookworm, and YouTube Emily J Casella and Emybookworm’s Cinema.