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Mario Castillo

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Mario Castillo is a Mexican-born American artist, currently working out of Chicago. Born to Manuel Castillo and Maria Enriquez de Allen, Mario came to America in 1955. Though he is mostly known for his abstract murals, Castillo experimented a lot with different styles, such as minimalism, body art, and conceptual art, during his years at School of the Art Institute in Chicago and the California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts). According to Castillo’s digital art gallery, he has been “credited with starting in the Midwest the Latino mural movement of the 1960’s.” Many of the art pieces in Castillo’s body of work have a mural-like style to them, depicting bright colors, free-flowing shapes, and “Native American aesthetics.” Castillo’s was inspired by “Mesoamerican murals from ancient Mexico […] and was able to use his heritage as a stimulus to create his murals.” In 1988 Castillo produced his piece Resistance to Cultural Death - An Affirmation of My Past, produced as a screenprint and is currently housed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (not on view).

According to an article published in the LA Times in 1989 Resistance to Cultural Death: An Affirmation of My Past, "celebrates [Castillo's] heritage and underscores the pre-Columbian imagery of the silk-screen. [Within the piece ] there is also Hindu and Tibetan spiritual imagery." Furthermore, this piece expresses a note of aggravation or aggression by use of the sharp angles. Most of the focal design aspects fall on the X-zone, with most of the energy drawing downwards to the lower half of the piece. More information regarding the historical context of the piece can be found here.
 

Written by Meelina Galope

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