Casey Gray

Lay of the Land

May 30 - July 5, 2026

Left Field is pleased to present Lay of the Land, a solo exhibition by San Francisco based artist Casey Gray. Known primarily for his vibrant still life paintings, Gray expands his practice into landscape for the first time, translating his distinct visual language and masking process into serene images that reflect an evolving dialogue between observation, memory, and formal experimentation.

Lay of the Land

This show has been a long time coming—a moment that marks both a culmination and an arrival. I wouldn’t call it a departure just yet. The majority of my career has been spent painting still life, over time building a visual language rooted in process and an effort to describe the grandeur of everyday objects as symbols for broad ideas. But, when you only focus on what’s in front of you, so to speak, you miss the bigger picture.

When I think about the kind of painter I aim to be, I think about artists who move fluidly between subjects, whose work remains unmistakably their own regardless of what they depict. That sense of authorship across genres is something I’ve always aspired to. Landscape painting feels like one of the last frontiers in that pursuit.

For those unfamiliar with my work, my paintings are built through a method akin to analog Photoshop, working in layered, hand-cut masks that create structure while allowing room for spontaneity and risk within each stage. That push and pull between precision and freedom mirrors a larger search for balance that runs throughout my oeuvre.

In the past year, I’ve shifted focus towards translating my visual language developed for still life into deep space, testing how varied mark-making, color and texture can expand outward into environments rather than inward onto clearly defined objects. This show represents the beginnings of that shift, an attempt to hold onto what is essential in my practice while opening it up to a broader, more immersive field.

I’m a firm believer in painting what you know, especially when confronting new territory, so for this body of work, that meant grounding the images in my own experience and photography. At the same time, I’m not interested in direct transcription. Through a mix of digital collage and careful editing, I rework my source material to hopefully arrive at something more considered, an image that leans subtly toward the sublime while staying true to the original spirit of the scene. These new paintings are, ultimately, a way of paying homage to place, to artistic identity, and to the evolution of the specific material language of my painting practice.

-Casey Gray

Casey Gray (b. 1983, Palo Alto, California) is a contemporary artist working primarily as a painter, while occasionally expanding into sculpture, graphic design, and site-specific murals. His work explores the meaning embedded in everyday life, using familiar objects and imagery as symbols to tell stories, process personal experiences, and examine identity. Themes of leisure, quiet celebration, and the search for balance—shaped by his suburban upbringing, rebellious spirit, and connection to nature—appear prominently throughout his work. Gray often uses historical painting traditions as a point of departure while allowing his subjects to move fluidly across genres, from figuration and still life to op-art and landscape. His practice is defined by a commitment to aerosol paint and laborious, hand-cut masking techniques, resulting in a distinct visual language that blends precision with spontaneity and realism with abstraction. Casey Gray received his MFA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2010, and his BA in painting and printmaking from San Diego State University in 2006. He has exhibited extensively across the United States and abroad since 2008. Solo exhibitions include Hashimoto Contemporary, San Francisco; Circuit 12 Contemporary, Dallas, TX; Ampersand Gallery, Portland, OR; Direktorenhaus, Berlin; White Walls, San Francisco. Gray’s work is included in the permanent collection of the deYoung Museum and Stanford University as well as many private and corporate collections worldwide.