Casey R. Klein Garza-Ortiz is an abstract painter based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After six formative years in Los Angeles, where she developed a bold and emotionally charged artistic language, she returned home to deepen her practice and reconnect with place, memory, and self. Her work emerges from lived experience as a lesbian, a woman with autism, and someone navigating the realities of emotional dysregulation, depression, and internal fragmentation.

For Klein, painting is more than a creative process. It is an act of survival, reflection, and repair. Her intuitive, tactile approach involves tearing, layering, and reconstructing materials in a rhythm that echoes her cycles of breakdown and rebuilding. Through these gestures, she creates immersive, abstract compositions that explore the complexity of identity and the often invisible terrain of mental illness.

Working primarily with acrylic paint, ink, pastels, colored pencils, paper, and components from previous works, Klein constructs expressive environments that meditate on memory, grief, queerness, and emotional states beyond language. Her process mirrors tension and release, fluidity and structure, allowing her to shape a personal vocabulary that is emotionally raw, multidimensional, and unafraid of ambiguity.

At its core, Klein’s practice is a form of advocacy. It is an emotional and creative call for greater awareness of mental health and the need for support systems that reach beyond institutional barriers. Her work reflects the urgency of creating care for those who feel unseen, disconnected, or without a safe place to turn. She aims to hold space for those navigating inner chaos in silence, offering her paintings as both a mirror and a refuge. Through abstraction, she invites others, especially those who struggle to find words for their pain, to consider creativity a powerful tool for healing, connection, and reclaiming agency over their inner worlds.