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Some Shows I'm In

Submitted by carolyncastano on July 17, 2009 - 6:13pm.

Bookmeat-A Fundraiser for Side Street Projects

Submitted by carolyncastano on November 18, 2009 - 11:02am.

Bookmeat Benefit Auction for Side Street ProjectsBookmeat Benefit Auction for Side Street Projects

Bookmeat is an exciting event benefiting Side Street Projects on November 21, 2009 from 6 pm-10 pm at the Brick Building in Culver City . For those of you not familiar with Side Street Projects, the program founded by Karen Atkinson and Joe Luttrel in 1992, is a completely mobile artist-run non-profit organization, which teaches artists to be self-reliant with workshops such as "Get Your Shit Together" bootcamp for artists, "Best Professional Practices Podcast Series" and the "Equipment Co-op", which provides access to equipment usually too expensive for some of us artist civilians to access. What I find really wonderful is Side Street Projects own resourcefulness, operating out of Pasadena in two restored vintage trailers with a solar energy array, Side Street is completely wireless, mobile, and self-sustaining. I've been wanting to have my mobile studio for years and this is really an inspiration!
The Side Street Project OfficesThe Side Street Project Offices

For the Bookmeat, artists were asked to donate a book that had influenced them or played some part in their art practice. I was having the toughest time trying to think of what to give. I have a wide collection of books and authors who have influenced me in some way. Do I give the catalogue of Lari Pittman's paintings, an artist and mentor who has influenced and supported my work? Or do I give "Smart Women Finish Rich" a very useful book on how to survive capitalism , written for women by a man. Thanks mom! Or Do I something more theory-ish..like say Rosalind Krauss, Bachelors, which influenced an earlier body of work? I saw some of the fine examples of artists who had turned in their copies early ( You eager beavers!) and saw the wonderful drawings by Steve Roden and Christopher Russell. A light bulb went off in my head the inscription can be more like an annotation or drawings in the form of annotations......aaaahhhhhh....

LA Extranjera

Submitted by carolyncastano on July 28, 2009 - 3:14pm.


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Narco Novio T-shirt Designs

Submitted by carolyncastano on July 24, 2009 - 10:15am.

I've been busy working on narco inspired t-shirt and print designs for all you novios and novias out there. In case you are wondering a novio is a boyfriend or can also be interpreted as a groom and a novia is a girlfriend or bride of said novio/boyfriend/groom/ husband to be. Taking off from the suite of paintings in It's Complicated,which featured portraits of drug lords and their girlfriends, the t-shirts are let's say the pret-a-porter version. Can I see a show of hands to see who is interested in one?

Narco Novio #1 : Pablo Escobar in aqua and yellow Narco Novio #1 : Pablo Escobar in aqua and yellow

Narco Novio #2: Pablo Escobar ( Just Yellow)Narco Novio #2: Pablo Escobar ( Just Yellow)

Favorite This! at the Meridian Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Submitted by carolyncastano on July 15, 2009 - 10:08am.

Favorite This! at the Meridian Gallery, San Francisco, CA: A one night video screening of artists from San Francisco & Los AngelesFavorite This! at the Meridian Gallery, San Francisco, CA: A one night video screening of artists from San Francisco & Los Angeles
Favorite This! at the Meridian Gallery, San Francisco, CAFavorite This! at the Meridian Gallery, San Francisco, CA

I organized a one night screening of videos by artists from Los Angeles and San Francisco entitled, Favorite This! at the Meridian Gallery in San Francisco. Part of my motivation for organizing the screening, was being inspired by some of my friends video pieces and wanting to share of these with a larger public. I made a call out to friends and friends of friends to send me their stuff. Without much in the way of parameters, I said "just send me what you have". Everyday was a delight, when I would go to my mailbox and right there next to my ever accruing bills, were these little packages containing the submissions for Favorite This! Each one was individually wrapped and packaged, reflecting the artist' particular artistic mission and taste. From the plain bubble wrapped CD mailer, a pink picture book, a DVD box set, a glassine wrapped disc. Some nights, I would come home to find little discs tucked into the planter next to my front door. With my live in love, exclaiming, " I opened the door and a weary eyed girl handed me this disc!" Were those the tired eyes of late night video editing? Oh final cut..How I love thee. I set out to arrange the pieces in the screening into some cohesive format, sitting for hours viewing Quicktimes and making notes on them. I noticed themes in common, like a certain quality of light, narrative or texture. The screening opened up with pieces I saw as exploring narrative and drama. In a lovely piece by Jordan Biren, It Was Dark as Night and Shadows, chiaroscuros hide and reveal characters trapped in a ritual of smoky eyed looking and not looking.

Vanitas Prints Installation View

Submitted by carolyncastano on June 18, 2009 - 9:40am.

Vanitas Prints Installation ViewVanitas Prints Installation View

A view of the Vanitas installation at S B London. Inspired by Pop art, poster art, and design. It was the first time I took an image of my work, in this case photographs that I made to go with the Vanitas video piece, and altered or re-processed them into poster like prints. I liked the idea of taking an older work and making something new with it. Kinda like recycling. The prints are individually sold on Etsy.com.

Señorita School Prints on Sale at Etsy.com

Submitted by carolyncastano on June 11, 2009 - 9:06am.

Vanitas Print (Silver and Black)Vanitas Print (Silver and Black)

Señorita School goes to Etsy.com. Etsy is a website which allows artists and craft folks to sell their handmade goods on the internet. I've set up shop and hope to sell small editions of prints and t-shirts designed by yours truly. On Etsy, I have a series of prints I made for a show at S B London last year called Video Works. The prints are inspired by pop art and poster art and feature imagery inspired by videos I've made. Each print is hand-altered and unique. For more details, Please check out my Etsy store.

A Review in Art Week

Submitted by carolyncastano on June 10, 2009 - 4:06pm.

It's Complicated receives a nice review in June's Artweek by Ashley Tibbits

ArtweekArtweek

The Conceptual Family, 1995

Submitted by carolyncastano on May 6, 2009 - 3:08pm.

The Conceptual FamilyThe Conceptual Family

This early Castaño has resurfaced after a thirteen year hiatus. It was shown in my first ever painting exhibition at the Luggage Store in San Francisco circa 1995, called "Dos Painters from the Mission" with Kenneth Huerta. From there, it was bought by Rene Di Rosa who had it in his home as part of the Di Rosa Collection. The painting was inspired by a family portrait that my dad had of him and his brothers. I wanted each character to resemble Velazquez or Garcia Marquez character. Well now it's back a lovely gallery from Florida has the painting and we are trying to find a home for it. So if you have any leads me write me here.
Thanks so much!

Review in the LA Times for It's Complicated at Walter Maciel Gallery.

Submitted by carolyncastano on April 22, 2009 - 12:30pm.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/

Beauty Queen, Smuggler, Girlfriend ( Laura Zuñiga)Beauty Queen, Smuggler, Girlfriend ( Laura Zuñiga)

Review: Carolyn Castano at Walter Maciel Gallery
10:45 AM, April 17, 2009

In his cartoonish style, Colombian artist Fernando Botero once painted a picture of slain drug kingpin Pablo Escobar as an obese, rooftop-dancing gangster amid a hail of bullets — sort of “Fiddler on the Roof” for the degenerate set. He presented the brutal criminal, once listed by Forbes magazine among the world’s richest men, in his pseudo-Robin Hood guise, dangerous yet cuddly. I’ll take Carolyn Castaño’s version any day. Her new work at Walter Maciel Gallery shuns easy moralizing for the sheer strangeness of modern media celebrity.
Seven punchy portraits, each 5 by 4 feet, chronicle men and women associated with Colombia ’s drug-addled travails. Paired with Escobar is Virginia Vallejo, the television news anchor who, improbably, was also his mistress. Nearby is Laura Zuñiga, the Mexican beauty queen who last December lost her crown when she was arrested on an alleged cash-and-weapons-smuggling trip to South America . Rodrigo Echeverry, Ingrid Betancourt, Clara Rojas and others who have flashed across TV screens also make appearances.
Castaño renders each one as a two-dimensional line drawing in rudimentary black paint on a blank white ground. Something as mundane as a facial feature — the curve of a nose or the shape of an eye — is faithfully rendered. But likeness is swamped by the overwhelming sparkle of glitter-encrusted paint on hair and lips, showers of syncopated geometric patterns in bright, eye-dazzling colors and lush cascades of ornate, stylized flowers.
There’s a visual insanity to the blaring execution of this imagery that meshes perfectly with the craziness of the subjects’ outlandish tabloid stories. A kind of Extreme Celebrity Portraiture, Castaño’s gonzo pictures make weird sense of inscrutable lives.
-- Christopher Knight

Los Angeles Times
Walter Maciel Gallery, 2642 S. La Cienega Blvd. , Culver City , (310) 839-1840, through May 9. Closed Sundays and Mondays.
Above: "Beauty Queen, Drug Moll, Girlfriend (Laura Zuniga)" (2009), acrylic, glitter and mixed media on canvas. Credit: Walter Maciel Gallery

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