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No
landscape architect can impose something on a landscape that is not a
response to something that is already there. The sculptor in bogwood
must be able to divine this hidden form, able to summon again the wind
and son of vanished summers so that he can respond and develop with
his shaping tools the human metaphor in which this unique form can
express itself. No sculptor in our time has done so with greater
insight than Michael Casey. Should it be a swallow that emerges , its
wings may be lifted by the winds of a summer four thousand years gone.
If it is a hurler , the strength of his arm may come from the energy
of a sun that warmed the Bronze Age. If it is an altar or lectern cut
to carry the books in which the word of God is written, its revealed
inherent beauty is all the more appropriate….
There is a stoic philosophy about these
art works, one which is in awe of nature and yet seeks to express very
human emotions and objects through it. There is a Michelangelesque
attitude within this notion: in the sense that the artist is removing
the art from the hands of nature, lifting the form from the natural
block, and in doing so adding that unique human element which allows
these primordial shapes and movements to speak to the public….
Like
Patrick Kavanagh, Michael Casey has succeeded in lifting art out of
the dark sods of the west and in so doing tastefully combines a Celtic
and Catholic mysticism.
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