VERONICA CASTILLO | TIERRA Y MUJER

ON VIEW MARCH 9 - APRIL 2, 2023

AnArte Gallery is honored to present Veronica Castillo’s solo exhibition, “Tierra y Mujer.” Please join us for an artist reception on Thursday, March 9, from 6:00-8:00 pm. Tequila y Mezcal reception, with music by Nina and Guitarist Louis, Art Talk at 7:00 pm.

Tierra y Mujer is a contemporary art exhibition of clay sculptures by renowned ceramicist Veronica Castillo depicting the relationship of women to the earth and all her elements. Through a deeply contemplative artistic practice, Castillo creates images of women and earth intertwined as allegorical representations of rebirth, regeneration, and regrowth. By focusing on literal, metaphorical, and symbolic representations of women engaged in daily activities, such as planting and harvesting food, grinding corn, talking to birds, and climbing trees, she hopes to expand how we understand procreation. While women are traditionally depicted as mothers, Castillo wants to honor women as life-affirming radical matriarchs, caretakers of the earth, that also birth ideas and dreams.

Verónica Castillo is an internationally acclaimed artist from Izúcar de Matamoros, Puebla, México. Under the tutelage of her parents, renowned artists Don Alfonso Castillo Orta and Doña Soledad Martha Hernández Báez, she learned to work in polychromatic ceramics, a Mexican art form passed on from generation to generation. Castillo continues to build on this tradition while focusing on contemporary issues of injustice and inequality. Recently, Veronica has been commissioned by the Smithsonian to create a Tree of Life (or Árbol de la Vida) for The Molina Family Latino Gallery, the Smithsonian’s first museum space dedicated to celebrating Latino culture and history is scheduled to open in the spring of 2022 in the National Museum of American History. The Gallery’s inaugural exhibition, Presente! A Latino History of the United States is where Castillo’s Tree of Life (or Arbol de la Vida) will be showcased. In 2013, Verónica Castillo received the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship Award. She is the owner of E.V.A. (Ecos y Voces de Arte), a gallery on the Southside of San Antonio. Together with an international network of artists, E.V.A. offers the space and support for various forms of cultural art to thrive.