Amy Casey

As we first set eyes on Amy Casey’s acrylic paintings, in which cars drive down (and sometimes fall off) precarious, squiggly streets held in midair by stilts, and houses hang on strings like the jewels of a necklace, my companion whispered, “Is this a Katrina reference?” Casey is actually referring Cleveland, not New Orleans, but her imaginative paintings of a city falling apart are nonetheless entrancing. The Cleveland-based artist demonstrates a sharp eye for minute details in her smaller-scale work but, unfortunately, some of her larger paintings lack those same scrupulous strokes.

Limited Possibilities is a perfect example of the former: A common, steel-blue–colored, multifamily house rests on a chunk of earth that wobbles on fractured stilts. A circular layer of tree stumps covers a portion of the ground to which this house will eventually plummet; in the background, a hazy mist surrounds two other islands-on-stilts of deteriorating commercial real estate. In Climb, Casey’s sole painting on canvas (the others are on paper), that same steel-blue house (the artist’s own home) floats on stilts in the background; a black road weaves its way into the foreground, while sea monsters’ tentacles devour the ground below. Here, Casey’s brush is less steady, and those darn sea monsters detract from the intricately painted cityscapes.

City Calm Down, a night scene of the city on stilts and strings—complete with orange-and-white–striped street safety markers individually perched on upright black rods—shines whimsy on this sometimes serious, though mostly magical, collection of paintings.