Pandora LaCasse

Pandora LaCasse is a sculptor and environmental artist whose pioneering work with sculptural light installations has helped shape the way public spaces are experienced after dark. For more than three decades, she has created installations that transform parks, plazas, and landscapes, inviting viewers to experience light as both a material and an atmosphere. Her work grows out of an intuitive understanding of structure combined with a deep sensitivity to landscape, architecture, and community.

LaCasse is best known for her large-scale sculptural light installations, many of which have become seasonal and long-running features in public spaces throughout Portland, Maine, and beyond. Her projects range from temporary and seasonal works to permanent commissions for civic, educational, and private settings.

Her path as an artist developed alongside family life. She began studying at the University of Maine at Orono in 1974, first in botany and later in the Fine Art Department. During those years, she and her husband David, who was studying mechanical engineering, welcomed their two children, Bree and Christopher.

From 1983 to 1986, she attended the MFA Sculpture program at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The family lived in West Philadelphia near campus, where the children explored the neighborhood and played along Locust Walk—especially around Claes Oldenburg’s Split Button. At Penn, her professor Maurice Lowe called her a trailblazer—the first married woman with two small children to enter the MFA sculpture program—and encouraged her upon graduation to become involved in her community, advice that continues to shape both her life and her work.

Through her studio, Pandora LaCasse Studio, she designs and produces environmental installations that merge art, engineering, and site-specific vision. Her work has been widely exhibited and commissioned across New England, Canada, and the United States. She is the recipient of the Maine College of Art Award for Entrepreneurship in the Arts and has taught sculpture and design for decades, mentoring generations of artist.