Aldona Casey

College of the Holy Cross, 2024, Studio Art and English

Second and Third Place Horses

bronze, sterling silver, and cotton cord

3.5″ x 7″

2022

This necklace was inspired by the Palio races that happen bi-annually in Siena, Italy. Horses are extremely important to Sienese culture and are revered for their role in the Palio. During my time there I took a metal-smithing class and this was my “wax” project. Using files and a curled saw blade I carved a horse out of a block of wax. The wax charm was made into a special mold and had molten silver and brass poured into the mold. I soldered silver rings to attach the three horses and cut a wax-cover cotton cord for the necklace bit.

Aldona Casey

Love is Holy

plexiglass and resin

18” x 24”

2024

I appropriated the Christian tradition of stained glass and superimposed gay women living together. I began by drawing the image with a sharpie to create bold shapes that were scanned into Adobe Illustrator. The shapes were then cut into plexiglass using a laser printer, and I individually secured each piece to a sheet of plexiglass by applying resin with a toothpick. I draw from my own experiences as a queer woman raised in a Southern Christian household to create self-portraits that explore the body as a form of communication. With this, I wanted to recontextualize queerness as holy.

Aldona Casey

Ravished

Inspired by: Justin Walker, Daddy Bruce

spray paint and acrylic paint on stretched canvas

18” x 24”

2024

Walker’s piece places an unappetizing meal next to a helpless woman equating her, visually and narratively, to meat. I have created lesbian imagery, a pornographic category devoured by men, as the “meat” of my piece. Walker’s character has no autonomy or control as to where the viewer gazes, similarly, the eyes in my piece eat away at the privacy of the characters. I incorporated food into the literal fabric and infrastructure of my piece. The pomegranate carpet suggests sexuality, placed directly under the bed with a bright yellow and red pattern. The pear wallpaper is overbearing, wrapping around the characters.