ISABELA CASTELAN
  • Isabela Castelan
    • Performance tools
    • My tools
    • Paintings
    • Soundscape
    • Works on Paper
    • Figurative work
    • 2001 - 12
    • Digital Fantasy
    • Statement
    • BIO
    • CONTACT
My work
My work is primarily based on automatism of the psyche.  Automatism refers to the performance of actions without conscious thought or premeditated actions, especially through the use of mechanical techniques or subconscious associations. Through this process I explore spaces of the mind that reflect a  gestural automatism. Through this process I try to build  spaces in my work that reflect landscapes of the mind.
In some works I explore simply painting or work figuratively but also executed through a mental automatism. This is a simple process but only possible if there is a contemplation of a very momentary space and time.
From this process the painting tools appeared, these are accessories that I make to create lines that overlap with textures, undulations. Part of this series is comprised of drawings of possible tools that may be built, but exist as plans for tools that explore my identity as a woman and my childhood. Many do not function to paint with but act to enable or disable the possibilities of the body. In this sense I am exploring suggestions of spaces that are extensions (or corruptions) of the body and the mind.

Sometimes I work in other media such as photography. These works are records of small improvised performances composed between myself and my surroundings and documented intimately by myself. Some images acquire a symbolic meaning, to do with my personal history. 
In my photos I explore myth, fantasy, if not only from my own identity as well as other stories that at some point were part of my life. I am an explorer of my mind, I visit spaces in which these images come alive. Sometimes this  process is bathed and immersed in mystical grounds, where my identity becomes mixed with iconic figures, symbolic ornamented figures.


  • Isabela Castelan
    • Performance tools
    • My tools
    • Paintings
    • Soundscape
    • Works on Paper
    • Figurative work
    • 2001 - 12
    • Digital Fantasy
    • Statement
    • BIO
    • CONTACT