New Casualism
New Casualism is a critical label for a tendency in early twenty-first-century painting, named by the painter and critic Sharon L. Butler in a 2012 essay in the Brooklyn Rail. It describes work that embraces the provisional: canvases that look abandoned mid-thought, casually assembled from taped seams, thin washes, drips and awkward colour. Where the previous generation sought resolution and impact, these painters value hesitation, modesty and the visible trace of decisions still in flux. The mood is anti-heroic - small scale, scruffy materials, a whiff of studio hobbyism - and it rhymes with the idea of provisional painting circulating in criticism at the time. Detractors hear sloppiness; supporters see a refusal of polish that keeps painting honest about its own making.
Defining characteristics
- Deliberate unfinishedness: canvases left open, provisional, visibly in-process
- Tentative, meandering brushwork and hesitant, weak marks left uncorrected
- Modest scale and anti-heroic presentation, avoiding big-statement impact
- Casual construction: taped or stapled seams, stains, drips, exposed supports
- Muted, off-key, or quirky colour relationships instead of harmonious schemes
- Craft and hobby materials mixed with paint, keeping the work unmonumental
Sources
- New Casualism - WikiArt institution