Jose has caught a small bird 2010

Jorge Castillo made “Jose has caught a small bird” with oil on canvas, and I can imagine him applying the paint in thin washes. Look at those ghostly pale blues, whites, greys and blacks, and imagine the painting coming into being through lots of shifting, and remixing. I wonder what Castillo was thinking, maybe about time, memory, childhood? The bird in the title makes me think he was contemplating themes of freedom and confinement. There’s a very interesting passage where the whited-out architectural structure overlaps a pale grey patch where Jose’s bird appears. It’s as if Castillo is thinking about the relationship between the natural and the man-made. Painting has always been a conversation, you know? One artist sees something another does and thinks, “Ah, I want to try that!” I see echoes of Morandi's still life paintings in the muted colour palette and simplified forms. Castillo takes these ideas and makes them his own. The best art embraces ambiguity, allowing us to find our own meanings within it.