Sweeter than Roses
Right from the pandemic confinement days, Victor Castillo presents his latest production, Sweeter than Roses, referring to the song that English composer Henry Purcell performed during the Baroque period of the 17th century.
The nude images - amplified copies from original 1960s negatives compiled by the artist - are used as canvases to evoke the contradiction that can exist between empowerment and eroticism through the artist's well-established irony and the sweetness and romanticism surrounding the exposure of the female body.
Castillo's new experimentation, displacing from the canvas to the reproduction paper and from the pictorial stain to the ink line, suggests interpreting these "tattoos" out of the usual figuration of his works, walking towards a new possibility of abstraction within the intervened photographic image.
Just as the artist often produces works that react to political events, Sweeter than Roses is framed within a line that he has mentioned as pure pleasure, alluding to the need to express, under this series of works, his admiration for the female universe and the interest in continuing his production not only towards the themes that stimulate social debate.