Paintings Curated by James Cavello
Exhibition dates: June 8 – July 7, 2012
Artist Bryan El Castillo deconstructs and reconstructs layers of photographs and painting to create emotionally charged images. Through a technique of collaging photographs on canvas and overpainting, the artist focuses on retro or baroque imagery combined with current and past world events to question once again our perception. The setting is often an open stage, and thecompositions are carefully arranged for maximum impact, with meaningful repetitive details which challenge initial interpretation. The symbolic compositions with fetishistic elements are painted in his trade-mark sepia-tone palette with color to highlight objects. His previous series focused on the search for identity in an egocentric culture; the current series points to the global impact of apparently individual events, while also reflecting on the sense of uncertainty which governs the world.
Bryan is represented by Westwood Gallery, NYC, where he is currently having his third solo exhibiton. His artwork has been on view in Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington D.C. and was featured by The Huffington Post, Dining Out Magazine and Art Nexus. A series of ‘Chanel’ paintings, related to the artist’s examination of the impact of the logo as a functional form of art, is part of a traveling exhibition of photographs of Coco Chanel by Douglas Kirkland. El Castillo has also contributed paintings to the documentary film AMAZON GOLD, currently on the film festival circuit, to be released fall 2012.
WESTWOOD GALLERY NYC, established in 1995, exhibits Contemporary artwork in all media with emphasis on photography and photo-based work, including collage, multi-media and video. The gallery program encompasses traveling museum exhibitions, art talks, private and corporate art consultation, gallery events, as well as non-profit collaborations. Artist media include painting, photography, sculpture, mixed media and video. The recently established Plus Projects division re-examines estates of New York art scene artists from the 1950’s and 60’s through museum-quality exhibitions and an educational program. Currently Plus Projects exclusively represents the estate of James Juthstrom (1925-2007), Will Insley (1929-2011), Constantin Antonovici (1911-2002), and exhibits the artwork of Boris Lurie (1924-2008). Gallery artists are represented in the permanent collections of MOMA, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Guggenheim Museum, Smithsonian, Whitney Museum of American Art, PS1, Walker Art Center, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and other national and international institutions.
Museums/ curatorial collaborations: The gallery has created several traveling exhibitions and provided or sold artwork to museums. The museums include Art Museum of the Americas (Washington DC), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, MOMA, Ft Lauderdale Museum of Fine Art, Boston University Art Gallery, The Annenberg Space for Photography (Los Angeles, CA), Erie Museum (Erie, PA), University of Wyoming Art Museum (Laramie, WY).
Media Reviews: The New York Times, New Yorker, New York Sun, Artforum, CNN, PBS, ABC, NBC, CBS, WPIX, WWOR, NPR, NBC, Miami Herald, SF Chronicle, NY Observer, Art in America, ARTnews, Artnet, The Art Newspaper, NY1, The Huffington Post, NY Sun, Art Nexus, International Herald Tribune, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Le Figaro, Village Voice, Wall Street Journal, Vogue Japan, Nikkei, Newsweek
