Bio
Michael Cassidy is a graduate of the University of South Carolina, Columbia, and Kendall College of Art and Design, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has taught at the University of South Carolina, South Carolina State University, and Richland Northeast High School. Cassidy keeps an active studio practice and has exhibited throughout the Country and at the United States Embassy in Bern, Switzerland. He has lived in South Carolina for over 20 years and resides in West Columbia. An avid hiker, angler, and hunter, Cassidy continues to draw inspiration from the immense cultural and natural diversity of the Southeastern United States.
Artist Statement - Spring 2024
Can you see her?
She lies alone in the shadows, watching, waiting.
Can you see her?
Hiding but desperately wanting to be seen
A vulnerable wildness
Untrusting, mysterious, and misunderstood.
I am trying to see her
Wanting to know
Trying to learn.,
Wanting to help.
This body of work is about my experience as a parent of a trans child. After living as a boy for 17 years, she has come out to us as trans. As she began trying to know herself, we began trying to know her. Though we have done our best to create an open, accepting, and supportive household, we often feel challenged and helpless when it comes to helping our child. As an artist painting is the way I navigate difficulties. This body of work is my way of trying to learn, understand, process fear, and bear witness to her struggle. I use animals anthropomorphically to represent my daughter. From my perspective her transitioning has been lonely, fragile, threatened, wild, and unpredictable like the creatures I use to represent her. Our natural inclination as a parent is to want to help and protect our children. Trans children and adults are persecuted and stripped of their rights at an ever-increasing rate, especially in the South. Every day I fear that she will not survive this. I am afraid that she will never leave the house and enjoy life and freedom. I am equally afraid that when she does leave, this dangerous and inhospitable world will take her down, or that she may never come back. Like finding a fawn left in a thicket, do we just watch and wait? Will they be, ok? I am often at a loss of how to help, or if she even wants or needs help.