Biography

Elana Casey

Artist, Curator, and Educator

Elana Casey is a mixed-media artist, photographer, filmmaker, curator, and writer whose work explores the cultural and spiritual dimensions of love, intimacy, and vulnerability. She primarily actualizes these themes through photography, fiction, and film.

Under the name Asha Elana Casey, she has cultivated a visual art practice centered on self-preservation, godliness, and spiritual resilience within African American culture—examining the intersections of art, memory, and faith.

Casey’s work has been exhibited at The George Washington University, The Katzen Arts Center, The Mehari Sequar Gallery, and the Prince George’s African American Museum and Cultural Center. She is a 2011 Anderson Ranch Arts Center Resident, a 2023 The Color Network Fellow, and a 2023 Maryland Folklife Apprenticeship Grant recipient.

She currently serves as Associate Director of the Augusta Savage Gallery at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she curates exhibitions and programs that advance cultural equity and support underrepresented artists. In this role, she develops residencies, partnerships, and curatorial projects aligned with the Fine Arts Center’s mission to expand access and representation in the arts.

Previously, Casey was Chair of the Visual Arts Department at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C., leading a team of educators and cultivating institutional partnerships with the Studio Museum in Harlem and ArtReachDC. During her tenure, she founded Studio74, an internal platform for artist talks, panels, and mentorship connecting students with prominent artists including Amy Sherald and Hank Willis Thomas.

As the founder and curator of Casey Contemporary, a Washington-based curatorial initiative, she has advised and organized exhibitions and artist programs featuring Shaunte Gates, Lex Marie, Mike Easton, and Jamilla Okubo, among others. Her curatorial practice bridges institutional frameworks and grassroots art communities, building new models for artist visibility, collector engagement, and Black creative legacy.

Casey earned her BFA from The Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at The George Washington University and developed arts programming for The Nicholson Project, where she designed a Teen Artist Residency focused on social practice, professional development, and landscape studies.