PAULA CASTILLO

STATEMENT

The complex and malleable intersections between the physical and cultural landscape are the primary source of Castillo's inventiveness. She writes, "The human-made microcosms combined with the expansive natural environment have been the catalyst for my interest in the systems and spaces we inhabit." Castillo's work annexes minimalist forms and schemes and reinscribes them with a quietly schizophrenic division between the hyper-organized desire to dissolve into the world and the need to buttress margins. Through these processes, Castillo strives to expose the strangeness of the world and the ideological forces that influence our conceptions of nature and relationships. She utilizes the literal and symbolic aspects of home places to experiment with ideas related to the broader Southwest region to create allegorical narratives that highlight causes and solutions. The all-encompassing goal for her work is to imagine the immense complexity involved for any entity to expose our real, dense, and buried attachments to 'other'.