Similar to the travel logs of the ancient explorers, in her diaries, Castello portrays the landscapes and settings witnessed during several visits to the Colombian tropics, along with texts that describe what she saw and experienced there. Unconcerned with producing a reliable account of the places visited, these journals are instead a cartographic guide to the artist’s sensations in those places.
Unable to separate the experience from what is perceived, her lens becomes a true superposition of imagination and reality. Cowboys, dinosaurs, cars, surfers, mountains, stones, palm trees... At first glance, these elements don't seem to have much in common, but as one's gaze delves deeper into the details it is possible to step inside a universe that seems nearer. The protagonists come alive and the separate elements form part of a nature suggesting autonomy as if these landscapes or scenarios actually existed and had been photographed.
Diptych. Tropicarios #5 and #8, 2017
Diptych. Tropicarios #5 and #8, 20177
From the Tropicarios series
Digital photography print on chroma luxe
Dimensions: 33 H x 43.5 W in.
Edition of 5 + 1AP
Unframed
Paloma Castello’s body of work brings life to a different narrative to an object’s past. She is interested in playing with memory and relating it to the present, creating an atmosphere between reality and fiction. Her family and social background have a powerful influence on her work, she was surrounded by objects and anecdotes inherited from her ancestors, those objects inspire endless surreal stories. Her work emerges from these experiences; they are evidence of her “auto-fiction”.
