Review: Castillo at Tarryn Teresa Gallery
LA Times 11:30 AM, May 29, 2009
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/05/castillo-tarryn-teresa-gallery-art-review.html
Two of Castillo’s three installations at Tarryn Teresa Gallery are made of synthetic hair, and the third evokes flowing tresses but is made of rope. Hair — including its surrogates and artificial substitutes — is a perfect post-minimalist material, pure in line and rich in bodily and cultural associations. That suggestiveness helps give Castillo’s otherwise subdued work a measure of power.
“Strand” is the simplest but the most affecting. It consists only of a length of industrially heavy rope looped around an iron hook in the ceiling. The rope twists around a few times on its way down; then, at about chest height, it unfurls, separating into what must be hundreds of wavy strands that fan out across the floor in a giant wedge, ending in a curly rim.
The relationship of part to whole is rendered with beautiful immediacy. Strength divides into delicacy and vulnerability; grace, multiplied, produces formidable heft. The unraveled rope emits a musky smell, that of its raw, fibrous nature. At the same time, it conjures the fabled plaits of Rapunzel.
In “Divinia,” a haloed curtain hangs rather mutely over a small pile of fake black hair. In “Ecliptic Eccentricity,” Castillo (one of this year’s City of Los Angeles, or C.O.L.A., fellowship award winners) dangles five huge hairballs, each 3 feet in diameter, from rusted chains. The spheres hang in a row, four sheathed in black synthetic hair and one matted in platinum blond. They make an imposing presence, like planetary orbs in a schematic display, or oversized, feminized cannonballs. Castillo practices a canny kind of truth to materials: The hair’s function is to beautify, but amassed in this quantity and format, it verges on the grotesque.
– Leah Ollman
Tarryn Teresa Gallery, 1820 Industrial St., No. 230, L.A., (213) 627-5100, through June 18. Closed Sundays.
Photo: “Excentricidad Ecliptica (Ecliptic Eccentricity)” (2000), synthetic hair and chain. Credit: Tarryn Teresa Gallery
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/lbw/may_09.htm#art
“Line: 7 Elements of Art.(Brief article)(Book review).” Internet Bookwatch. Midwest Book Review. 2009. HighBeam Research. 23 May. 2009 <
http://www.highbeam.com>.
Line: 7 Elements of Art
Jane Castillo
Crystal Productions
PO Box 2159, Glenview, IL 60025
So simple, yet so complex. “Line: 7 Elements of Art” takes a look at lines, something the untrained artist would not notice, but the trained artist would know makes up just about everything about the subject. Written for starter art students, “Line” is an entry in a series dedicated to the many aspects of art. Focusing on lines, one of the most crucial and subtle elements, author Jane Castillo gives readers what they need to know to appreciate and apply lines in their own work. “Line” would do well in any art studies collection.
I invite you to view a nice number of my installations this weekend…
SATURDAY:
Artwork by Castillo, Courtesy of Tarryn Teresa Gallery
A lot of women in LA are obsessed with their hair, but installation artist Castillo takes the prize. Her large-scale sculptural works combine natural and artificial hair with rope and other textile materials, creating sweeping, towering, imposing, and alluring falls, spheres, and lattices that reference the expansive cross-cultural symbolic capacity of hair — from sexuality to ritual, femininity to power, and beauty to mystery.
– Shana Nys Dambrot
SUNDAY:
C.O.L.A. 2009 INDIVIDUAL ARTIST FELLOWSHIP EXHIBIT
FEATURING C.O.L.A. VISUAL ARTIST AWARD RECIPIENTS
Visual Arts Exhibition Dates: May 14 to July 12, Municipal Art Gallery
*****Exhibition Opening Reception: Saturday May 17, 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery
Barnsdall Art Park
4800 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90027
323/644-6269
The 2009 C.O.L.A. award recipients in the visual arts are: Natalie Bookchin, Jane Castillo, Joe Davidson, David DiMichele, Bia Gayotto, WillieRobert Middlebrook, Jr., Maureen Selwood, Eloy Torrez, and Shirley Tse.
I invite you to join me in celebrating this award…
http://flavorpill.com/losangeles/events/2009/5/2/c-o-l-a
C.O.L.A. 2009 Individual Artist Awards Mixer
Artwork by Castillo, courtesy of the artist.
Each year the City of Los Angeles awards roughly a dozen substantial grants to individual mid-career visual, performing, and literary artists whose work does the city proud. The exhibition opens mid-May at the LA Municipal Art Gallery, and there are performance dates throughout the summer at off-site locations; by all accounts, the artists are currently working around the clock to prepare the new works supported by the grants. Tonight they come out of their studios for a much-needed break at an early cocktail party in their honor, hosted by the Department of Cultural Affairs.
– Shana Nys Dambrot
