Tropicarios #4 presents miniature tropical staging photography where plastic figurines inhabit geode "islands" surrounded by artificial tropical plants—creating surreal tableaux blending Castello's tropical memories with constructed fiction inviting viewers to experience personal approximation between own fictions and artist's. This digital pigment color photograph gives life to objects (toys, minerals, fake flora) through theatrical staging: atmosphere between reality (actual photographed objects) and fiction (surreal tropical narrative). The work plays with memory of tropics not as documentary but as constructed fantasy—miniature people in tropical costumes performing on agate surfaces creating condensed theatrical world more authentic to collective tropical imagination than actual geographic reality. Tropicarios #4 evokes emotions about how tropics exist in personal fantasy: each viewer recognizing own tropical fictions when seeing Castello's staged miniature universe where natural geodes, artificial plants, plastic figures cohabit in surreal autofiction.
Paloma Castello's Tropicarios is an invitation to experience a space in which the fiction and her memories of the tropics blend together to create a personal approximation between our own fictions and those of the artist.
Miniature tropical staging photography creating surreal tableaux—figurines and geodes as constructed tropical worlds. Tropicarios #4 by Paloma Castello. Available at The Art Design Project, Miami Beach.
Miniature Tropical Staging Photography – Tropicarios #4, 2017 by Castello
Tropicarios #4, 2017
From Tropicarios series
Digital photography print on chroma luxe.
Dimensions: 33 H x 21.6 W in.
Edition 3/5 + 1AP
Paloma Castello was born in Bogotá, Colombia in 1988. Castello has a Master's degree in Classical Studies from the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, as well as a Master's degree in Contemporary Photography from IED Madrid in Spain. She studied Photography, Art and Architecture at Central Saint Martins, London, United Kingdom and before beginning her training as an artist in Colombia she attended the School of Arts and Crafts of Santo Domingo to study Silversmithing Techniques and the University of the Andes where she studied Wood Reproduction. Castello and obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts from the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University, Bogotá, Colombia.
