Miami artist Autumn Casey is giving Tiffany’s iconic Art Nouveau lamps a playful, millennial update with her new exhibition “Fantasy and Her Fantasies” at New York’s The Future Perfect (on view through March 14). Here, luscious floral motifs abound, with apple blossoms, wisteria, and sunflower designs filling the shades of these handmade, one-of-a-kind lamps—creations Casey refers to as “illuminated sculptures.”
Photograph by Vanessa Diaz.
“I grew up in South Florida and my knowledge of stained-glass lamps came from Pizza Hut and Applebee’s,” she said with a laugh. But the artist, who has a background in dance, was inspired to create the series after a visit to the Tiffany Glass collection at New York’s Queens Museum of Art. “Seeing that collection and how ornately detailed these lamps were, I felt like it was like a challenge that I could try to take on that would be fun and fulfilling,” she added.
But these delightful lamps are much more than mere emulations of Tiffany’s famed early 20th-century designs—despite their appearance, Casey’s lamps contain no glass at all. “These lamps are made with wire, hand-painted fabrics, plaster, and epoxy clay on a welded steel frame,” Casey explained. “The shades are fabric painted with acrylic. Eventually, I coat everything in resin which gives the work that glassy look.” The sculptures are also deceptively heavy. “People expect these to be as light as glass, and while I want people to treat them that gently, these lamps are so heavy and basically indestructible,” she laughed.
Autumn Casey, 2024. Photograph by Vanessa Diaz.
Casey, who previously made more ephemeral sculptures, started fabricating lamps during the lonely months of 2020 thinking of the lamps as “psychic portraits” of the friends she couldn’t see. “I realized lamps were something I could give to people,” she explained, “When I couldn’t be with my friends in person, I could think about colors I associate with them and abstract ideas and funky shapes.”
The exhibition title hints at the power Casey finds lurking in the intimacy of the home; “Fantasy and Her Fantasies” is a reference to a campy 1977 Japanese horror film where a group of school girls find themselves staying in a supernatural house. “Fantasy is the name of one of the girls—she’s the dreamer of the group but also the one who notices that the house is doing some weird stuff. Slowly the girls get eaten by the house,” Casey explained “I spent so much time alone last year by myself essentially in my house with these lamps getting swallowed up.
Inside Autumn Casey’s studio.Photograph by Vanessa Diaz.
Casey credits her interest in the artistic potential of the domestic realm to her grandparents. These sculptures, in particular, are made with fabrics that were inherited from Casey’s late grandmother, a dollmaker.
“My paternal grandparents lived as a dollmaker and carpenter in North Carolina. They had a little antique store called the Old Cupboard and they lived on top of it and sold cigarettes and packaged pastries like bear claws. There, they would sell her dolls and his creations as well as antiques” she said “I went and spent a summer with them and it opened my eyes to how art can be a part of your every day. I think their folk art spirit is alive in me.”
Photograph by Vanessa Diaz.
“Autumn Casey: Fantasy and Her Fantasies,” is on view at The Future Perfect’s West Village townhouse gallery through March 14, 2023