Visual Aid's Lost and Found

A solo exhibition of work by Greg Cassin, on display through July.

A Gallery Walk is scheduled for Saturday, April 26th, 1-6pm. For details, visit www.yerbabuena.org.

Greg Cassin, self-taught artist and painter, lives in San Francisco. His sexuality, HIV status, Catholic roots, anger, and hope all greatly influence his creative process. "Creating art for me is about talking/taking back..."

Teetering on the edge of blurry uncertainty and familiarity, the juxtaposed images in Greg Cassin's mixed media paintings create a visual dialogue around issues of personal history, collective memory, and stylized iconography. Lost and Found offers possibilities for "spiritual reclaimation" and peace in an otherwise war-torn, destructive and commodified world. Simultaneously his works challenge the viewer's popular notions of cultural discontinuity between the past and present.

Through the layering of found photographs, cast off materials, and ephemera such as illustrations from 19th C. first aid manuals, board games, and advertisements, Cassin's visual collages reveal the complexities between representation, sustainable knowledge,and that which has been culturally discarded. Insects, flowers, butterflies and other natural science specimen are combind with religious icons that fold into WWII letters and turn of the century sheet music, creating a mesmorizing tension between image and text.

This exhibition was curated by Dustin Smith and Sallyann English of Visual Aid's X-team.