Rosana Castrillo Diaz (born 1971) is a Spanish artist.

Early life and education

Rosana Castrillo Diaz was born in

Sama de Langreo Sama is the second largest parish of the city of Langreo / Llangréu, Asturies, in the north of Spain. It had 8,500 inhabitants within the urban area and 300 outside of it.The parish and district occupy an area of . In the past, Sama was an impo ...

Asturias Asturias (; ; ) officially the Principality of Asturias, is an autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in northwest Spain. It is coextensive with the provinces of Spain, province of Asturias and contains some of the territory t ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from the

Complutense University of Madrid The Complutense University of Madrid (, UCM; ) is a public research university located in Madrid. Founded in Alcalá in 1293 (before relocating to Madrid in 1836), it is one of the oldest operating universities in the world, and one of Spain's ...

and an additional BFA from the

Cleveland Institute of Art The Cleveland Institute of Art, previously Cleveland School of Art, is a private college focused on art and design and located in Cleveland, Ohio. History The college was founded in 1882 as the Western Reserve School of Design for Women, at f ...

. Rosana has a Post Bac degree from the

School of the Museum of Fine Arts The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (Museum School, SMFA at Tufts, or SMFA; formerly the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) is a dedicated art school within Tufts University, a private research university in Massa ...

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

. She received her

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admi ...

degree from

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, California is part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was relocated to Oakland in ...

Work

Castrillo won the SECA Art Award from the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...

in 2004 and Artadia Art Award in 2005. She is represented by Anthony Meier Fine Arts in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

Themes

Diaz produces graphite-on-paper drawings, wall relief sculptures, and installations primarily in monochromatic all-white. In her work, she investigates invisibility, the everyday, solidity and immateriality. According to Janet Bishop, a curator at the

, Castrillo Diaz saw a 2000 SFMOMA retrospective of the art of

Sol LeWitt Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism. LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he pref ...

, which had an impact on her work: for example, her large ephemeral drawings using Scotch tape. These works hang from the wall and move with the air, so that only their shadows remain constant; the work can appear invisible at one angle or look three-dimensional at another angle. Speaking of her tape drawings and white-on-white pieces, Castrillo Diaz has said, “My interest is in quiet, in simplicity, and in the kind of space that is in the periphery and is not quite there, or you don’t know whether it’s there or not." The work has also been described as “an attempt to redefine drawing in a three-dimensional… form.”Glen Helfand. Reviews: Rosana Castrillo Diaz: Anthony Meier Fine Arts.

Exhibitions and collections

Her work has been exhibited in numerous exhibits, including at the

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA, formerly abbreviated as BAM/PFA) are a combined art museum, repertory movie theater, and film archive associated with the University of California, Berkeley. Lawrence Rinder was Director ...

, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, the

Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts The Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts is a nonprofit contemporary art center and research institute in San Francisco. It is part of the California College of the Arts. The institute holds exhibitions, lectures, and symposia, releases publica ...

and

The Drawing Center The Drawing Center is a museum and a nonprofit exhibition space in Manhattan, New York City, that focuses on the exhibition of drawings, both historical and contemporary. History The Drawing Center was founded by former assistant curator of dr ...

. In 2009, the

commissioned Diaz to create a mural, ''Untitled'' (162 in. x 1101 in./ 411.48 cm x 2796.54 cm ) for the bridge to the museum's rooftop garden; the mural was funded by a gift of Robert and Claudia Allen and the Mary Heath Keesling Fund. Using white paint and applying patterns of highly reflective

mica Micas ( ) are a group of silicate minerals whose outstanding physical characteristic is that individual mica crystals can easily be split into fragile elastic plates. This characteristic is described as ''perfect basal cleavage''. Mica is co ...

, which can also make light look very white, Diaz painted the window-facing wall of the bridge to take advantage of the light flooding into the glass-walled corridor. Thinking about how the viewer's perception of the piece changes as he or she walks across the bridge, Castrillo Diaz also felt “it needed to flow like water." In this mural, the white palette and reflectivity of the mica are both elements of the design; however, distinctions in white that can be seen from one angle may not be visible at another angle. Castrillo Diaz has said that when the distinctions disappear, the piece “comes to completion in a way.” Castrillo-Diaz' work is in public and private collections, including the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

, New York, NY;

, San Francisco, CA;

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

, San Francisco, CA; and Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Castrillo Diaz, Rosana 1971 births Living people 20th-century Spanish women artists 21st-century Spanish women artists People from Langreo Complutense University of Madrid alumni Mills College alumni Cleveland Institute of Art alumni Spanish women sculptors