We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Andrea Castillo. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Andrea below.

Andrea, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

It’s something that I knew was always there inside of me. I think it really struck me in my early 20s when thinking about getting an MFA and considering art was something that I really wanted in the forefront of my life.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am interested in representing the experience of what it means to take up space in a racialized body. As a cis-woman who is often only seen for my Latinx descent but also identifies as white, socially I will never be seen as the visibility of a white body. In my sense of a multifaceted identity, there is a constant negotiation for one’s existence. My practice allows safety and celebration in the body where its existence otherwise might be challenged. The painted contorted figures act as a reclaiming of agency, set in contemporary quotidian environments with art historical references, to represent a merging of personal and collective memory to explore the cultural duality of the physical and inner worlds. I paint imagined archetypes in contemporary scenes that act as a sense of safety and protection for the interior life of a body, to see the potential without external anxieties that influence how we perceive ourselves. Allowing space to use imagination and shared personal experiences to fill the ambiguity in the paintings, escaping some of the binaries that come with limiting representations.
My practice reappropriates art historical references of female subjectivity while coinciding with personal lived experiences, a reclaiming of agency from hegemonic ideals is formed. My practice attempts to move away from socially recognizable bodies as a way to decode and challenge social constructions of identity and to expand the bodily form in more infinite ways.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Finically invest in artist and creatives that you admire. Get to know more about them and their work and invest in them.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Having the ability to exercise my own creative thoughts on the daily and pour it into my work. It’s a privilege to hold that with such high regard.

Contact Info:

• Website: n/a
• Instagram: andiiicastillo

Image Credits
Samuel Sachs Morgan