Victor Castillo

Victor Castillo

b. 1973 Chile

Victor Castillo showed a great interest in drawing from an early age, inspired by the animations he saw on television, science fiction movies, and the illustrations on record covers such as Pink Floyd’s The Wall. In 2004 Victor moved to Barcelona, Spain, where he devoted himself to painting and established his style with references to comics, graffiti, and classic paintings,especially seeing Goya's Black paintings at the Prado Museum.

Victor's latest paintings cover his vision of America, with the myth of Hollywood myths at the heart of it. Layering film and pop culture references, the artist has found a way to draw on pop culture tropes, styles and imagery, incorporating these concepts into Victor's style. The works reflect the greed, fear and cruelty of human character, or see beauty, hope, and unconditional love. Victor's work emerges as a reflection of human beings, who are who we are.

Victor Castillo was born in Santiago, Chile in 1973. He began drawing obsessively at the age of five, inspired by the animations he saw on television, science fiction movies, and the illustrations on record covers such as Pink Floyd’s The Wall.

Following studies at the University of Art and Social Sciences (ARCIS) and the Catholic University of Chile, Victor joined the independent experimental art collective Caja Negra in Santiago, creating multimedia installations. In 2004 Victor moved to Barcelona, Spain, where he dedicated himself to painting and established his style with references to comics, graffiti, and old master paintings, particularly Goya’s Black Paintings after seeing them at the Prado Museum.

Victor’s Explicit Lyrics exhibition with Iguapop Gallery in 2007 was a critical success with the national newspaper El País publishing a full-page article about his tragicomic vision titled The Triumph of Pop Surrealism. Victor’s first solo exhibition in the United States When the Heavens Open was with Roq La Rue in Seattle, followed by Gameland with Merry Karnowsky Gallery, and in 2010 Victor moved to Los Angeles, California, where he lives and works. Victor was featured in the traveling museum exhibition Turn the Page: The First Ten Years of High Fructose (USA, 2016–17), and in the Les Enfantes Terribles exhibition during the Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art (France, 2011). Victor’s work has been presented by Isabel Croxatto at international art fairs Ch.ACO Santiago, Istanbul Contemporary, Art Central Hong Kong, and ZONA MACO Mexico City, among many other galleries and fairs worldwide. Victor has created murals for the National Museum of Fine Arts (MNBA) and Centro Gabriela Mistral (GAM) in Santiago, Chile; the Museum of Modern Art in Chiloe; the Center for Contemporary Culture Barcelona (CCCB), Spain; and the Fabbrica di Vapore Che exhibition in Milan, Italy.

Hollywood Dreams, a 6-minute short film by Loica and Barefoot Productions about Victor's work, won the Gold Remi Award at the 52nd Annual WorldFest-Houston in 2018.

Victor Castillo is represented by Gin Huang Gallery in Asia.

Playful yet dark, Victor’s work lures you into a cartoon world where leering wolves cavort with perverse, Pinocchio-like children in works that echo the multiplane camera effects utilized by Disney’s Nine Old Men—the legendary fantasy factory’s core animators. Victor conjures compelling tableaux that are as chimerical as they are apocalyptic, chaotic, lonely, and isolating.

The artist has found a way of harnessing the tropes, style and imagery of pop culture, infusing commonplace concepts with creepy subtext. Here is horror and humor. For children, fairy tales are cautionary tales—finger-wagging rehearsals for grown up life, quite grim (Brothers Grimm reference intended here), despite their candy coating. In these stories, Dickensian urchins are often orphaned or ostracized and left to fend for themselves. Victor amplifies this notion, twisting it a few more notches by taking the child’s avatar, the cartoon character, and inserting it into truly ominous contexts while simultaneously teasing the eye with distorted scales. The seduction of accessibility and familiarity is both entertaining and unnerving; an adult perspective of a kid’s vision, a tense conversation between the sweet and the sinister.

Victor’s vision of America, specifically the myth of Hollywood, is central to his latest paintings, layering in film and pop culture references that pull between the quick read and the deliberately ambiguous. It’s up to the viewer to invent the backstory implied. The implications are rewarding, obsessive and critical. Like searching for Easter eggs in hell. His practice is organic, his surreal scenarios and characters plucked from the ether of animation and psychedelic illustration (Gerald Scarfe and Ralph Steadman come to mind). He renders his multifaceted, complex images with a trained hand. And apart from his accomplished and obvious technical skills, his compositions are beautifully modeled, and lit with a painter’s eye. It’s exciting to discover art that stays with you long after seeing it. Victor’s work is haunting in all the right ways.

—Val Kilmer

Setting the Stage

Victor’s work provides a kind of release, a candy colored fantasy world where satire, critique, and reckless abandon take shape in a completely satisfying and fully narrated form. Victor is the ultimate theater director, setting the stage, lighting, and characters in costume to an exacting degree while overseeing every minute detail down to the scoring of music for each scene in his mind’s eye. The rest is up to us. We have the pleasure of enjoying what unfolds: the drama, darkness, seduction, mystery, longing, and laughter. There are scenes, rendered through paint and canvas that you may have to look away from, and others that leave you dancing in your seat. There is never a dull thought or moment.

Victor’s ultimate mastery is that he meets us where we are at, without judgment or malice. His paintings are intentionally layered to allow us to experience them from the vantage point we wish—reflecting on humanity’s worst impulses: greed, suppression, fear of other, and brutality—or at our best: seeing beauty, hope, humor and our enduring capacity to love unconditionally. Often it’s a combination of both. And it’s always our choice. It’s always our mirror.

— Merry Karnowsky

Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down ...

Victor Castillo is truly an artist of our age. Much like other artists working in socio-politically fraught times, Castillo’s subject matter can be a little hard to manage. His messages are harsh and uncomfortable truths, rendered in theatrically dark backgrounds, sickly whites, and lurid clown colors. Each one stars grotesquely smiling and vacant-eyed Pinocchio-type characters. These features denote brutality, dishonesty, and willful ignorance, and his villains are always in the midst of some terrible act, gleefully lying to everyone about what they are doing and how they are getting away with it. Despite that, each painting is rapturously beautiful in execution and wrapped up in a bubbly cartoonism designed to tug ironically on nostalgic tendencies.

There’s a quote I heard once that seems to fit many viewers thoughts on Castillo’s work: “I am seduced by my repulsion”. It’s hard to look at, for what it says about us as humans, but it entices our eye nonetheless. And that’s good, because Castillo’s work is an important statement on our current world, commenting on the destructive nature of colonialism, cronyism, capitalism, racism, and the overarching greed for more at the cost of all. He is deftly able to capture the viewers’ attention and transmit a message in seconds, crucial in this time of tiny attention spans, with the mindless churn of vapid vanities and media manipulations designed to distract us at every turn.

Castillo’s work resonates with Pop Surrealism, an art movement that, in the early 2000s, was starting to cause a global stir for its insouciant approach to the high art world. It maintains a steadfast devotion to technical excellence and provocative subject matter, with a heavy, unapologetic nod to kitsch culture. Castillo’s work was quickly embraced by the juggernaut of this movement because of its intelligent horror-pop sensibilities. His imagery turned beloved children’s iconography on its ear and slashed at the soft, bloated underbelly so that unpleasant truths about the world could tumble out.

Most artists in the Pop Surrealism movement focused more on the inner world of the psyche, full of strange but generally beautiful symbolism and magical realism. Outside influences tended to be that of the natural world, and mankind’s impact upon it, sad warnings of climatic and environmental changes.Castillo’s work took the socio-political world head-on, savagely depicting the tribulations of a capitalist, hyper-consumerist society.Castillo’s work goes far past the sly wink, going full bore for the jugular. For all its crazy cartoonery and black humor, it’s really not funny at all; rather, it is sobering and reflective, even if you get a sense of a strange joyful catharsis when you see some rotten character get a comeuppance in one of the paintings.

— Kirsten Anderson

Projects

2021

Solo exhibition

Somewhere Over the RainbowHelMel Studios & Gallery, Los Angeles, USA

2020

Solo exhibition

Jungle Boogie, Dorothy Circus, Rome, Italy

Group exhibition

BLAB! Show, Copro Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
LA Art Show, Copro Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
Urvanity Art Fair, Fousion Gallery, Madrid, Spain
101 / Une exposicion, 101 Artists, Adda & Sarto Gallery, Paris, France

2019

Solo exhibition

Le Pays Du Serpent, Adda & Taxie, Paris, France

Group exhibition

MAM31 La Muestra Anual, Museum of Modern Art, Chiloe, Chile
Contemporary Istanbul Art Fair, Isabel Croxatto Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey
The Blab Show 14th Annual, Copro Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
Hello Kitty 45th Anniversary Show, Corey Helford Gallery, Los Angeles, USA

2018

Solo exhibition

The Invisible Cage, Isabel Croxatto Galeria, Santiago, Chile (2018 - 2019)

Group exhibition

Mystic Detectives, Samek Art Museum, Bucknell University, Pennsylvania, USA
Contemporary Istanbul Art Fair, Isabel Croxatto Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey
Chaco Contemporary Art Fair, Isabel Croxatto Gallery, Santiago, Chile
Postrauma, Sala Gasco, Fundación Gasco, Santiago, Chile
Desordenes Sistemicos, Contemporary Art from Chile, Centro Cultural Matta, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Pictoplasma Festival and Conference, KulturKapellen, Berlin, Germany
The Blab Show 13th Annual, Copro Gallery, Los Angeles, USA

2017

Solo exhibition

We Were All To Be Kings, Jonathan Levine Projects, Jersey City, USA
Broken Hearts, KP Projects, Los Angeles, USA

Group exhibition

Turn The Page: The First Ten Years of Hi-Fructose, Crocker Art Museum,Sacramento, USA, Akron Art Museum, Ohio, USA
Alt Realities of Contemporary Artists, Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum, Arizona,USA
Art Central Art Fair, Isabel Croxatto Gallery, Hong Kong, China
Chaco Contemporary Art Fair, Isabel Croxatto Gallery, Santiago, Chile
Che Guevara Tu y Todos, Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan, Italy
Weapons of Mass Seduction 2, Heliumcowboy, Hamburg, Germany,
Modern Angelenos, Montalban Theater, Los Angeles, USA
One & All, Avenue des Arts Gallery, Los Angeles, USA

2016

Solo exhibition

Born In 73, Merry Karnowsky Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
Hollywood Dreams, Galeria Isabel Croxatto, Santiago, Chile

Group exhibition

Art Central Art Fair, Isabel Croxatto Gallery, Hong Kong, China
Turn The Page: The First Ten Years Of Hi-Fructose, Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, USA
10th Anniversary Exhibition and Beneath the New Waves, Corey Helford Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
The Blab Show 11th Annual, Copro Gallery, Los Angeles, USA

2015

Solo exhibition

Pure Pleasure, Merry Karnowsky Gallery, Los Angeles, USA

Group exhibition

Sydney Contemporary Art Fair, Isabel Croxatto Gallery, Sydney, Australia
Chaco Contemporary Art Fair, Isabel Croxatto Gallery, Santiago, Chile
Art Copenhagen, Heliumcowboy, Copenhagen, Denmark
Scope Art Fair, Heliumcowboy, Basel, Switzerland
Scope Art Fair, Fifty24mx Gallery, Miami, USA

2014

Solo exhibition

Strange Fiction, Blokker Gallery, Madrid, Spain

Group exhibition

Zona Maco Contemporary Art Fair, Isabel Croxatto Gallery, Mexico City, Mexico
Chaco Contemporary Art Fair, Isabel Croxatto Gallery, Santiago, Chile
Swab Art Fair, Barcelona, Spain
Weapons of Mass Seduction, Heliumcowboy, Hamburg, Germany

2013

Solo exhibition

Under Heavy Measures, Merry Karnowsky Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
Love Me Two Times, Isabel Croxatto Gallery, Santiago, Chile
Morir, Morir, Morir, Megumi Ogita Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

Group exhibition

Chaco Contemporary Art Fair, Isabel Croxatto Gallery, Santiago, Chile
Urban Superstar Festival, Galleria Santa Chiara, Rete Museale Provincia Cosenza, Italy
Illustrative Festival, Direktorenhaus, Berlin, Germany
Children of Revolution, Ego Gallery, Lugano, Switzerland
Laluzapalooza, La Luz De Jesus Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
An Even Eleven, Shooting Gallery, San Francisco, USA
Decade 1, Varnish Fine Art Gallery, San Francisco, USA

2012

Solo exhibition

The Jungle, Jonathan Levine Gallery, New York City, USA

Group exhibition

Caprichos De Un Curador, National Museum of Fine Arts (MNBA), Santiago, Chile
Ritorno All’alba / Back To The Sunrise, Alba Fucens Roman Amphitheatre, Rome, Italy
Tell Me A Story Now, Rockland Center for the Arts, New York, USA
Crucifixion, Corey Helford Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
Vinyl Revisionists, Warner Bros Records, Los Angeles, USA

2011

Solo exhibition

Masters Of The Universe, Helium Cowboy Gallery, Hamburg, Germany
Rebels With A Cause, Merry Karnowsky Gallery, Los Angeles, USA

Group exhibition

Les Enfants Terribles, Résonance Biennale De Lyon, Le Plateau, Lyon, France
Obey Your Master (Tribute to Metallica), Exhibit A Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
Martha Cooper: Remix, Carmichael Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
Taetrum Et Dulce Show, MondoPop Gallery, Rome, Italy
Taetrum Et Dulce Show, Distinction Gallery, Escondido, USA
The Lowbrow Show, Galerie Brugier-Rigail, Paris, France
Hi-Fructose Invitational, Roq La Rue Gallery, Seattle, USA

2010

Solo exhibition

Strange Fruit, Merry Karnowsky Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
Victor Castillo, London Miles Gallery, London, UK
Gameland, Merry Karnowsky Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
Restless And Wild, Helium Cowboy Gallery, Hamburg, Germany

Group exhibition

Urban Superstar Show, Museum of Contemporary Art, Naples, Italy
Swab Art Fair, Too Cool For School, Iguapop Gallery, Barcelona, Spain
Relationships, Christoffer Egelund Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
Mountain to Surf, Heliumcowboy Gallery, Hamburg, Germany
2 Años, 2 Dibujos, 20 Artistas, Galería Moro, Santiago, Chile
Hunt and Gather, Thinkspace Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
Hi-Fructose 5th Anniversary Exhibition, Copro Gallery, Los Angeles, USA

2009

Group exhibition

Apocalypse Wow, Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome, Italy
Arteba Art Fair, Galería Moro, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Ocho, Mi Mundo Privado, Galería Moro, Santiago, Chile

2008

Solo exhibition

Before The Heavens Open, Roq La Rue Gallery, Seattle, USA
Explicit Lyrics, Galería Moro, Santiago, Chile

Group exhibition

Triatlón: VI Bienal de Arte MNBA, National Museum of Fine Arts (MNBA), Santiago, Chile
XX MAM 20 Años, Museum of Modern Art (MAM), Chiloé, Chile
Scope Art Fair, Iguapop Gallery, New York, USA and London, UK
Swab Art Fair, Iguapop Gallery, Barcelona, Spain
Canto Negro & Brujerias (with Miss Van), Merry Karnowsky Gallery, Berlin, Germany
5 Years Anniversary, Heliumcowboy, Hamburg, Germany
Sewn and In/Out, East Asia Contemporary Gallery, Shanghai, China

2007

Solo exhibition

Explicit Lyrics, Iguapop Gallery, Barcelona, Spain

Group exhibition

Sewn China/Chile, Shang Elements Contemporary Art Museum, Beijing, China
International Art Festival BAC! 07 Babylon, Contemporary Culture Center (CCCB), Barcelona, Spain
Le Jardin des Delices (with Diva), Desig, Barcelona, Spain
Iguapop, Helium Cowboy Art Space, Hamburg, Germany
Barcelona – Paris – Pekin, Espace Cultural Ample, Barcelona, Spain
Inoxidable, Galería Santa Fe, Bogota, Colombia
Inoxidable, Iguapop Gallery, Barcelona, Spain

2006

Solo exhibition

Un Mundo Feliz, Galería Marita Segovia, Madrid, Spain
Pan y Circo, Galería H10, Valparaíso, Chile

Group exhibition

Cinismo colorista al límite del discurso, Sala Muncunill, Ajuntament de Terraza, Spain
Inoxidable Neopop, Sala Gasco, Santiago, Chile and Galería Braga Menéndez, Buenos Aires, Argentina
We Make Money, No Art, Iguapop Gallery, Barcelona, Spain
Bosque Desencantado, Bread and Butter Festival, La Santa, Barcelona, Spain
Cartoon Generation, Espace Cultural Ample, Barcelona, Spain

2005

Solo exhibition

Tabu y Exilio, Iguapop Gallery, Barcelona, Spain
Children Of Revolution, Galería OFF Ample, Barcelona, Spain

Group exhibition

International Art Festival BAC! 05 La violencia
Contemporary Culture Center (CCCB), Barcelona, Spain
Brigadas al Muro
La Santa Gallery, Barcelona, Spain
Colectiva
Iguapop Gallery, Barcelona, Spain

2004

Solo exhibition

Postizo, Galería Balmaceda 1215, Santiago, Chile

Group exhibition

International Art Festival BAC! 04 La piel, Contemporary Culture Center (CCCB), Barcelona, Spain
Estética Integral, La Nueva Imagen, Centro Cultural de España, Santiago, Chile
Proyecto Cubo, Centro Cultural Borges, Buenos Aires, Argentina

2003

Solo exhibition

Masacre, Centro Cultural de España, Santiago, Chile

Group exhibition

Mas Alla del Bien y del Mal, Museum of Contemporary Art, Valdivia, Chile
Artistas del Siglo XXI, Centro de Extensión UC, Santiago, Chile
Proyecto Cubo, Caja Negra Studios, Santiago, Chile

2002

Group exhibition

Nuevos Integrantes de la Colección, Museum of Modern Art (MAM), Chiloe, Chile
Speak System, Celda 9 (Km9), Centro Cultural Borges, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Centro de Extensión UC, Santiago, Chile
Arte De Hoy, XXV Concurso Amigos del Arte, Parque Arauco, Santiago, Chile

2001

Group exhibition

Quinta Bienal de Video y Nuevos Medios, Museum of Contemporary Art, Santiago, Chile
Memento Mori, Centro Cultural Alameda, Santiago, Chile
17 Tiros o la Noche del Cazador, Caja Negra Studios, Santiago, Chile

1999

Group exhibition

Geometría Transitoria (with Norton Maza) Sala Negra, Instituto Chileno Norteamericano De Cultura, Santiago, Chile

1998

Group exhibition

Anamorfosis: Perspectiva Secreta, Museum of Contemporary Art, Santiago, Chile

1997

Group exhibition

Art Miami, Jacob Karpio ATMA Gallery, Miami, USA

1996

Group exhibition

Expo Arte, Concurso De Pintura, Talca, Chile

1993

Group exhibition

6th International Biennial Prints and Drawing, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan
Concurso Matisse, Instituto Chileno Francés de Cultura, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (MNBA), Santiago, Chile
Nueva Generación Concurso De Pintura, Plaza Mulato Gil, Santiago, Chile

Street Art Project

2019

We Are Dreamers, Kadikoy, Istanbul for Hush Hostels gallery
Pure Pleasure, Museo de Arte Moderno de Chiloe (MAM)
Love & Hate, Sala Gasco, Santiago

2018

Hide and Seek, Collaboration with Andrea Leria and Isabel Croxatto gallery for Contemporary Istanbul art fair

2017

Sueño con Serpientes, Fabbrica de Vapore, Milan, Italy for the exhibition Che Guevera: Tu y Todos
Untitled, Downtown Los Angeles for Avenue des Arts gallery

2015