CASEY NEWBERG

WRITTEN BY DANIELLE COOKE

Casey Newberg believes her traumatic experiences belong on a gas station shelf, but she’s doubtful that anyone would want to buy them. As a young girl growing up in the Midwest, Newberg was often confronted with displays of eye-catching, colorful gas station products that she calls “horny pills.” In constructing her own “pill packs,” Newberg explores the conceptual packaging and consumption of trauma, addressing these oddly sensationalized medicinal items while commenting on the greater societal issues they represent. The cathartic process of making allows her to re-pack her past with the aim of ridding herself of her struggles with medical dependency and psychological pharmaceuticals. She recognizes the increasing universality of her experiences and hopes to connect with others through her works.

It’s not all doom and gloom though; Newberg laughs in the face of uncertainty and pain, for she recognizes that life is indeed both “funny and shitty.” She pays homage to this great divide, and the dichotomy is apparent in each of her works. Her Corten steel pill packs, many of which are powder coated in neon hues and laser etched, are designed to self-destruct. Over time, the color is forced off the object’s surface by natural oxidation activated by the environment, echoing the chemical processes that corrupt the medicated human body. At times, the addition of salt water encourages this corrosion, symbolic of the tears shed for the body subjected to medical trauma. In this way, her works evoke a fragmented and unsteady nostalgia, a muddy conglomeration of memory activated by color and form.

Newberg’s “jewelry packs” similarly bring chintzy readymade jewels into the arena of “high art.” All of her packs are wearable, but their functionality is cheapened by the kitschiness of their forms, which taunt the viewer with brilliant gems sealed away beneath vacuum-formed plastic. Witty words decorate the packaging, but once the process of deterioration begins, their message becomes as fleeting as the object itself. Soon, the packs and their contents will be as fragmented as the memories that formed them

SPOILED ROTTEN (right)

Steel, powder coating, plastic, readymade materials.

Dimensions variable.

Installation view.

SPOILED ROTTEN (left)

Steel, powder coating, plastic, readymade materials.

Dimensions variable.

Installation view.

Photo credit: Sam Fritch

C U NT KEYCHAIN PIN (previous page)

Laser-etched & aged steel, steel keychain findings, powder-coated aluminum, stainless-steel tie tack, anodized titanium staple. 7” x 2.25” x .2”

“SAY YES” RING (02) (left)

Powder-coated, laser-etched & aged COR - 10 steel, vacuformed PETG, readymade “engagement” ring. 2” x 1.1” x .5”

ALONE STEEL KEYCHAIN PACK (bottom)

Laser-etched & aged steel, steel keychain findings, powder-coated aluminum, vacuformed plastic, stainless - steel tie tack and pins. 5” x 3.3” x .2”