Gerardo Castro: Santo Gerardo: New York, NY

Ethan Cohen Gallery is pleased to present Santo Gerardo, a solo exhibition by Gerardo Castro, an Afro-Caribbean artist whose artwork questions and expands beyond conventional societal and religious structures, creating portraits of both real and imaginary saints to look up to and watch over the marginalized. In re-imagining these structures and saints, Castro invites viewers to do the same, encouraging a dialogue about evolving traditions towards inclusivity. In this exhibition, Castro seamlessly weaves together subjects of identity, ancestry, and lineage through the kaleidoscope of spirituality, sexuality, colonialism, power, and revolution.

 

Merging oil painting with mixed media applications, Gerardo Castro creates constellations of marvelous glittery, unmistakably black, and emphatically brown figures in environments that are spiritually charged. His paintings are in a sense icons, or doorways to the sacred - timeless, visual manifestations that serve as a portal into the artist’s creative world. Castro depicts his subjects as icons to convey the presence of a sacred being. To have imagery that gives representation to people of color, honors, reflects, and reminds the marginalized that they too are sacred.

Gerardo Castro was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico. He obtained an MFA in painting from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, in 1996 and has been exhibiting his work nationally and internationally. He is currently based in Newburgh, NY. Castro recently organized the 13th annual Newburgh OPEN Studios and The Lightbulb Project: a public art experience.

 

Santo Gerardo is the artist's first solo exhibition with Ethan Cohen Gallery.

 

Gerardo Castro On His Work:

 

Masculinity Reimagined Series

 

For decades, the dominant cultural image of masculinity has included heterosexuality, physical strength, having many children, walking, talking and dressing like a “real” man and/or not crying or showing emotion. Questioning what is masculinity brings with it experiencing high degrees of explicit pressure, verbal and physical, to conform to various aspects of the traditional image of manhood in which there is always a constant need to negotiate masculine identity. Machismo attitudes often denigrate queer femme men for not subscribing to traditional norms of gender presentation even though many gay men are bolder and freer than “machistas” can even imagine. Oddly enough, far too many of us even in the queer community, femininity in men scares us. Drag is an art form that allows the artist to transform their face and body in ways that push gender norms and creative boundaries.

 

Men are not afraid of things, but of how they view them.

 

 

 

Divine Woman, Divine Wisdom Series

 

Women are a powerful force in our global society. This series upholds and celebrates the stories and perspectives of women of color. Historical icons and modern innovators, who have inspired world change, all of whom are Caribbean / Latina women. Women who holistically - in body, mind, and spirit - transform self, families, communities, and the world. Women are celebrated - shown as saints, heroines, warriors, goddesses, and sages.

 

 

 

Espiritu, Magic and Rhinestones Series

 

I think that anything that is well-crafted and deeply observed is ‘beautiful’. Looking is an act of creation. I am not in control of what the viewer thinks, sees, or feels when looking at my work. Art is a deeply personal, subjective experience.

 

Acts 2:4 - And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

 

 

llluminated Shadows (2011-15) Series

 

Illuminated Shadows encompasses oil paintings and mixed media works inspired by supernatural forces influenced by Afro-Cuban religions and spirituality, more specifically the Santeria religion, as well as culturally dominant fantasies about masculinity and sexuality. Over the years I’ve created images rooted in ethnicity and gender that have escaped the trappings of popularized constructions of Latino identity, be it through their androgynous looks or mystic creations; androgynous male figures, figures at once muscular and yet recognizably “feminine” in some of their poses and expressions.

 

The juxtaposition of the painted male figure to the dark Shadow plays a major factor not only in the composition and structure of the painting but also symbolically, there exists an interaction of the sacred and the secular. In the Shadow, I use ideograms found in indigenous religions as an inspiration for personal and spiritual transformation. The symbols are a Spiritualized drawing that connects the signatures of the entities and forces with symbols that represent a given change in the world that we want the spiritual force to accomplish.

 

Emanations Series

 

Emanationism is a cosmological theory that asserts that all things “flow” from an underlying principle or reality, usually called the Absolute or Godhead. Any teachings that involve emanation are usually in opposition to “creation out of nothing” as emanation advocates that everything has always existed and has not been “created” from nothing. We ignorantly believe in the adequacy and assumption that what we don’t see does not exist. If you create sharp divisions and cling to narrow definitions of subject and object, whatever you see will always appear in the context of those limitations.