Cassie Paine is a Sculpture and Installation Artist and Printmaker whose work reflects on the functional and authoritative role tools hold within our society. Her work investigates urban planning strategies, systems in place to control automotive and pedestrian traffic, and distinctions between public and private places.
Paine holds a BFA with an honourable mention from OCAD University (2018). She is a current MFA Candidate in Sculpture and Ceramics at Concordia University and the 2019 recipient of the Dave McGary Memorial Award in Fine Arts. Recent solo exhibitions include The Brick Archive, Art Mûr (Montreal 2019) and Unsigned, Coldstream Fine Art (Toronto 2018). Recent group exhibitions include Batteries Not Included, Xpace Cultural Centre (Toronto 2023), Maureen VI (Montreal 2022), I Know What You Are But What Am I, Ignite Gallery (Toronto 2018) and Fresh Paint/New Construction, Art Mûr (Montreal 2018).
Artist Statement
I have a site-responsive installation-based practice which relies on observing city systems and municipal infrastructures. Growing up in the border city of Windsor, Ontario, the economic precarity of post-industrial cities was a recurring concern. In my youth, I recognized the impacts of residential capitalism, the 2008 recession, and the ongoing efforts to revitalize the city.
My work stems from navigating the urban environment, studying, and observing changes to city infrastructure, and reflecting on how these changes effects the day-to-day interactions of myself, and fellow pedestrians. Infrastructure such as signage, benches, and privacy mesh are devised to hold authority, and subconsciously influence how pedestrians engage with their surroundings. At the same time, public space infrastructures reflect fluctuating economic states of cities and correspond with changes in labour patterns.
Through my work, I utilize these same coded infrastructures to speculate alternative interactions between pedestrians and their built environment. By presenting regulatory tools in positions that are more passive or exaggerating features that prescribe them authority, I disrupt established hierarchies that place infrastructural objects in higher positions than individuals.
Contact: Cassiepaine96@gmail.com