Rosana Castrillo Díaz: Recent Works

An exhibition of recent works of the Spanish artist based in San Francisco.

In this body of work there is a direct connection between memory, emotions, and the physical hand at work. Each mark is a feeling, a chord, each drawing a score witness to a moment in time, a mood, a place. In the silence and introspection engendered, the quietest gesture may very well be the loudest.

—Rosana Castrillo Díaz

Working with fibers, paper, and graphite on paper, Rosana Castrillo Díaz crafts studies of space. The subtleties that Díaz is interested in manifest in her masterful presentation of material: as purely material. Paper is layered upon paper; and mica is dusted upon fiber to expose iridescent energy only revealed through the shifting of light.

Appreciating the hushed quality of common materials, Díaz’s works reveal her keen sense of beauty upon close contemplation. Her compositions seem both meticulously detailed and refreshingly untouched. The artist’s hand is palpable, but demure. While her studies of material are simple, her drawings are intricate and detailed. By listening, Díaz acknowledges, and begins a conversation, about the act of seeing.

Rosana Castrillo Díaz was born in 1971 in Sama de Langreo, Asturias, Spain. She received a BFA from the Facultad de Bellas Artes, at the Unversidad Complutense in Madrid, Spain as well as from the Cleveland Institute of Art in Cleveland, OH. She completed post-baccalaureate work at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA and received her MFA from Mills College in Oakland, CA in 2003.

She has had solo exhibitions at Anthony Meier Fine Arts in San Francisco, CA. Recent group exhibitions include:

• Fifty Years of Bay Area Art: The SECA Awards at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA.
• Drawing the Line at The Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA.
• Exonome at the Consulate General of Mexico, San Francisco, CA.
• Selections from the Collection, BAM/PFA, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA.
• Regarding Truth, An Exhibition of Work by Artadia Award Winners at the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA.
• Hair Rising at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA.
• 2004 SECA Art Award at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA.
• Wall-to-Wall at The Drawing Center, New York, NY.
• In My Empire Life is Sweet at DCKT Contemporary, New York, NY.
• Next New at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA.
• Commission ’04 at the San Francisco Arts Commission, San Francisco, CA.
• Warped Space at CCA Wattis Institute of Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, CA.
• Cream at ArtsBenicia, Benicia, CA.
• Comers…up and 2 at Jay Jay Gallery, Sacramento, CA.
• M.F.A. Exhibition at Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA.
• Graduating Student Exhibition at S.M.F.A., Boston, MA.
• Post-Baccalaureate Class Exhibition at S.M.F.A., Boston, MA.
• S.M.F.A. Annual Juried Exhibition at S.M.F.A., Boston, MA.
• Post-Bac at S.M.F.A., Boston, MA.
• B.F.A. Honors Student Exhibition at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH.
• Graduating Students Exhibition at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH.
• Collective Sculpture Exhibition at Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain.
• Collective Drawing Exhibition, Leon, Spain.

Castrillo Díaz is the recipient of numerous awards including the Artadia Art Award, Artadia: The Fund for Art and Dialogue (2005); the SECA Award, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2004); the Jay DeFeo Merit Award, Mills College, Oakland, CA (2003); the Trefethen Merit Award, Mills College, Oakland, CA (2002); the Photographer’s Forum Magazine Excellence Award (1999); the First C.I.A. Associates Award, Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH (1996), among others.

Her work is in many public and private collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, and Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA. Castrillo Díaz has also been commissioned for site-specific installations at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and at the Community Center at the University of California, San Francisco’s Mission Bay Campus in San Francisco, CA.