V I C T O R I A   C A S T I L L O  

Biography

 

    “I watch people going about their lives and want to know their stories” says Victoria Castillo, describing why she paints.  “Sometimes, I see flickers of emotion on people’s faces that give clues to the everyday dramas playing out in front of me.  I try to capture these scenes in my paintings, these snippets of people’s lives, in the hope that the viewer will identify with them.”

 

    Born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Victoria Castillo’s interest in “all things visual and made by hand” was fostered by her mother, who as an interior designer, constantly repainted and rearranged all the rooms of their house, and her father, who was always doodling, tinkering and building contraptions in his wood shop. This creative spirit runs deep in her family with members who include a glass artisan, an architect and even a concert violinist. 

 

    Victoria studied art at Washington & Lee University and then at the University of Maryland, where she began to understand the importance of having one’s own voice and learning from, but not merely being a devote of another artist, “Why does everyone say they want to paint like Sargent? Of course he was a master, but there are so many exciting ways to apply paint on canvas to make colors vibrate and compelling subject matter to explore. Why use someone else’s voice when we each are born with our own?” 

 

    After college, Victoria has lived and worked in both Europe and the US.  “I’ve met so many interesting people from different cultures and walks of life. I’m convinced that we share many of the same frailties, longings, fears and joys, and that we have similar victories and family quarrels.  There are an infinite number of ways these human narratives play out. All of these personal stories I’ve witnessed go into my art. I have so many ideas captured in sketches, photos, and my memory that my days are full distilling them into paintings.”

 

  Victoria competes in nationally juried art competitions and has exhibited paintings in galleries in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, the District of Colombia, Virginia, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas.  She has won numerous awards.

 

   Victoria continues to hone her artistic skills by occasionally sharing a bottle of wine and picking the brains of nationally known painters at intensive painting workshops.  Her teachers include  Jeremy Lipking, Quang Ho, Carolyn Anderson, C.W. Mundy, Daniel Pinkham, Peggy Kroll Roberts and Michael Malm.

   
   Victoria now resides in College Station, Texas with her “smarty-pants professor husband, four dogs and a vegetable garden with okra that grows fast enough it is threatening to take over the house.”  She paints full time.

 

Exhibitions

 

66th Annual Audubon Artists Exhibit, Salmagundi Art Club, NYC

 

22nd Annual Conservatory Art Classic, Bosque Conservatory, Clifton, TX

 

42nd Annual River Road Show, Louisiana Art & Artists' Guild,
Baton Rouge, LA

Eighth Annual Juried Show: Interior Spaces II, Nelson Fine Arts Gallery, Lexington, VA

 

16th National Juried Show, Art Center of Northern New Jersey,

New Milford, NJ 

 

12th Annual Southworks National Juried Art Exhibition, Watkinsville, GA 

 

April Regional Artist's Exhibition, Fredericksburg Cener for the Creative Arts, Fredericksburg, VA

 

10th Annual National Juried Show, Gallery West, Alexandria, VA

 

Greenbelt Labor Day Art Show, Greenbelt Association for the Visual Arts, Greenbelt, MD

 

"Paint & Beyond", National Center Gallery, The League of Reston Artists & The US Geological Survey, Department of the Interior, Reston, VA

 

Greenbelt Community Center, Greenbelt, MD

 

Art-O-Matic, Washington DC

 

West Gallery, University of Maryland, College Park, MD

 

River Gallery, Galesville, MD

 

 

Publications

 

The Washington Post, 8/10/06

Professional Artist Magazine (Formerly Art Calendar), 9/10
 

Reston Connection, 8/9/06

 

Backfence.com, 8/01/06 - 8/31/06

 

Affiliations

 

Oil Painters of America

American Impressionist Society

The Lone Star Art Guild

 

 

 

 

 

Email: victoriaroach@yahoo.com