Untitled Jorge Castillo

The artist born in Spain spent his childhood in Buenos Aires. When he returned to Madrid, he set out along his individual course, never joining any art trend. His singular style is drawn mainly on classical – chiefly Mediterranean – artistic traditions from Velázquez to Picasso, alloyed with traces of surrealism; his art primarily conveys his own poetical dream world. The sight of reality and the direct experience of life combine into the visual elements of a personal mythology. His frequently ironic, witty formal inventions become especially manifest in his drawings and prints. His favourite themes are the family, mother and child together or separately, modelled upon his own wife and child.
Castillo met Marienza Binetti, his later wife, in 1966. They spent three years together in Boissano, a small town on the Ligurian shore in Italy where he made a series of etchings and aquatints. The pen drawings, the model and protagonist of most being Marienza, were preparatory and supplementing studies to his series The Circus. Her name is often included in the titles of the works, such as Marienza in Persepolis, a pen drawing of which the sheet MO.91.6 is a motivic variation.

Ferenc Tóth