Exhibitions
The dream of Ometecuhtli
Solo show: Gabino Abraham Castelán
Until Jan 13
Ometeotl, the dual god comprising Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, is the supreme creator deity of the Aztecs, who resides in Omeyocan, the place of duality. In this visual journey, Castelán pays tribute to this polarity and the conflicts and desires of the human experience. His paintings and works on paper dive into "Nepantla," a concept representing the space between two worlds where one’s psychic, spiritual, and material points have potential transformation. In these works, the tangible and the abstract unite in a harmony of color and form.
Castelán depicts the worker as a phenomenon immersed in an epic journey of metamorphosis through the layering of drawing, painting, and collage. The tragedy of economic exploitation intersects with the fundamental truths of humanity: hunting, gathering, work, love, death, birth, marriage. In this body of work, the laborer is revered as the creator of the goods that sustain modern life. These works are not only a visual testimony of histories of agony but also of joy and self-determination. For Castelán, what’s important is how these stories echo through generations and what we can learn from them.
GABINO A. CASTELÁN (b. 1986, Epatlán, Puebla, México) lives and works in Florida and New York. He is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice is driven by research, process, and experimentation through various media, such as drawing, painting, installation, and utilitarian sculpture. Castelán received an MFA (2017) and a BFA (2012) in painting from Hunter College, and he was an artist-in-residence at Atelier Mondial in Basel, Switzerland (2020) and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2014), which has deeply influenced his unique
and provocative artistic approach.