About the Exhibition

Carolyn Castaño: Delineando un Paisaje Femenino

(Outlining a Female Landscape)

Main Gallery, Mentry 108
August 19 – October 10, 2019

Artist Talk: September 10, 2:30 PM - a reception for the artist will follow.

Carolyn Castaño is a Los Angeles-based artist whose work in painting, drawing, video, and mixed-media installations has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. Delineando un Paisaje Femenino (Outlining a Female Landscape) brings together selections from her most recent bodies of work and considers themes and images originating in Latin and Central America, with a particular emphasis on how gender and ecological concerns play out in regional conflicts, narco-trafficking, and post-colonial struggle. Mixing vibrant and lush materiality with riveting content, her work considers how the Latin American body and the Latin American landscape remain inextricably linked, even as their surrounding media and political contexts are increasingly virtualized, digitized and globalized.

Physiognomy of Tropical Vegetation in South America: After Humboldt & Berg, 2016, detail view

Physiognomy of Tropical Vegetation in South America: After Humboldt & Berg, 2016, detail view

Physiognomy of Tropical Vegetation in South America: After Humboldt & Berg, 2016, detail view

Physiognomy of Tropical Vegetation in South America: After Humboldt & Berg, 2016, detail view

 Physiognomy of Tropical Vegetation in South America: After Humboldt & Berg, 2016, detail view

 Ruana Interruption (Red and gold), Watercolor, gouache on watercolor paper mounted on plexi

Ruana Interruption ( Pink and Magenta), Watercolor, gouache on watercolor paper mounted on plexi

Ventanas, watercolor, gouache, and acrylic on mounted paper

Ventanas, watercolor, gouache, and acrylic on mounted paper

  Latin American Stuffable (Arepa) video

An arepa is cornmeal griddle cake popular in Venezuela and Colombia.
Arepa is also a euphemism for a lady’s private parts.

Carolyn Castaño

artist link: https://carolyncastano.com/

• Press Release
  COC Art Gallery’s Castaño exhibition kicks off National Hispanic Heritage Month
  
  The College of the Canyons Art Gallery presents the exhibition “Carolyn Castaño: Delineando un Paisaje Femenio – Outlining a Female Landscape,” on view from August 19 to October 10, 2019. A free public lecture by the artist will take place on Tuesday, September 10 at 2:30 followed by a reception for the artist from 3:30 – 5:30 in the Art Gallery.
  
  The solo exhibition of recent painting, drawing, mixed media, and video by Los Angeles-based artist Carolyn Castaño highlights the artist’s ongoing exploration of identity, gender and the social conditions facing women. A Colombian-American, Castaño draws inspiration from her bi-cultural identity and explores themes and images that originate in Latin and Central America with a particular emphasis on how gender and ecological concerns play out in regional conflicts, narco-trafficking, and post-colonial struggle.
  
  Making connections across cultures, places, and female experiences, Castaño is
  known for her powerful layering of multiple visual traditions, including Pre-Columbian and indigenous textiles, popular media, formalism, 20th century graphic design, and early 19th century botanical drawings. “By putting abstractions and patterns on the same plane as traditionally painted landscapes I hope to not just capture the historical simultaneity of cultures and ecosystems, but also a sense of their possible futures,” said Castaño of her work.
  
  This exhibition is historically important for the COC Art Gallery as it features the art of a woman of color. Since the gallery’s opening in 1997, there have been few shows by female artists, and even fewer of those artists were women of color. Castaño is the Art Gallery’s very first one-person exhibition featuring a Latina artist.
  
  “I feel very fortunate to be able to introduce our students and campus community to this wonderful artist,” said Pamela Bailey Lewis, COC Art Gallery Director. “Two of my main goals as a curator for a campus-based art gallery are to bring the most compelling art of our time to campus so our students will have the opportunity to engage with it first-hand; and to create relevant, inspiring programming that reflects and supports the diverse communities we are here to serve. This exhibition does both those things!”
  
  
  The College of the Canyons Art Gallery is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. Those unable to visit the gallery during normal hours are welcome to contact the gallery to schedule a viewing appointment.
  
  All gallery exhibitions and related events are free and open to the public.
  
  For more information, please visit www.canyons.edu/artgallery.