Uncertain Parties

The Casselberry Arts Center is pleased to present Uncertain Parties, a two-person exhibition featuring new paintings and works on paper by artists Lindsay Deifik and Emmy Thelander. Bringing together two distinct yet deeply connected artistic practices, the exhibition examines the complex relationship between rational systems and emotional experience through contemporary painting.

Although Deifik and Thelander have maintained an artistic dialogue for more than fifteen years, Uncertain Parties marks the first exhibition to intentionally pair their work. Having met as undergraduate students at Washington University in St. Louis, the artists have developed parallel careers while cultivating unique visual languages that investigate structure, perception, and the ways we attempt to make sense of the world.

Working from different conceptual perspectives, both artists employ painting as a means of navigating the space between objective logic and subjective experience. Their works invite viewers to consider how order, pattern, intuition, and emotion coexist within everyday life.

Deifik’s gouache-on-panel paintings captivate the eye through vibrant color, intricate patterning, and optical intensity. While visually seductive, the works simultaneously create a sense of distance, prompting viewers to consider the tension between attraction and restraint and they sometimes even introduce an element of danger.

In contrast, Thelander’s paintings begin with seemingly rational systems. Inspired by charts and organizational structures documenting daily priorities, her compositions evolve into poetic and playful mappings of interior thought, revealing the instability that often exists beneath carefully constructed order.

Together, the exhibition explores how two artists—and two lifelong friends—approach similar philosophical questions through distinctly personal visual vocabularies. The resulting dialogue reveals the fluid boundaries between certainty and ambiguity, logic and intuition, and the external systems that organize our lives versus the internal experiences that often resist organization.

The exhibition features a selection of paintings on panel ranging from 10 to 38 inches, accompanied by framed drawings that provide insight into each artist’s creative process and conceptual development. The natural light of the Casselberry Arts Center is an ideal environment for experiencing the subtle variations in pigment, surface, and material that are central to both artists’ practices.

“We’re excited to share this work with the Central Florida community,” said the artists. “The exhibition represents years of ongoing conversation between our practices while allowing each body of work to retain its own distinct voice.”

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Casselberry Arts Center will host a joint artist talk, where Deifik and Thelander will discuss their artistic trajectories, their longstanding friendship, and the ways their work intertwines rational, grid-based structures with vulnerability, intuition, and lived experience. The conversation will offer visitors a deeper understanding of the conceptual foundations behind the exhibition while creating an opportunity for dialogue with the artists.

Lindsay Deifik is Assistant Professor of Printmaking, Drawing, and Foundations at the University of Central Florida. Emmy Thelander is Assistant Professor of Painting at Binghamton University, SUNY. Their exhibition at the Casselberry Arts Center brings together two accomplished artists whose work contributes to ongoing conversations in contemporary painting while highlighting the enduring value of artistic collaboration and dialogue.

Uncertain Parties continues the Casselberry Arts Center’s commitment to presenting thoughtful, contemporary exhibitions that connect Central Florida audiences with artists exploring relevant cultural, philosophical, and material questions through innovative artistic practice.

Exhibition Information

Exhibition: Uncertain Parties
Artists: Lindsay Deifik & Emmy Thelander
Venue: Casselberry Arts Center
Artist Talk: TBA

For more information, please visit the City of Casselberry’s Arts & Events webpage or contact the Casselberry Arts Center.