Artist Profile
Ruben Castillo
Studio Resident (2017 - 2018)
Statement of Work
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My work is about contact between the metaphorical and literal "you and me." I make imagery about how and where intimacy between bodies takes shape within the ordinary. Looking at my home and domestic objects, I see the ordinary as a site for potential queer transformation in my attempt to answer the question which plagues queer bodies in spaces of normativity: how to be? Using vignettes and narratives from my life, I pursue a conclusive truth about others or myself.
The questions I ask in my drawings, prints, ready-made sculptures, and videos are how do we become intimate and what do we learn from our successes and failures? I make my attempt to communicate my desire and queerness through text, actions, stills, and suggestions with sincerity. I work autobiographically but I am seeking absolutes not just for myself but for the viewer as well. I am trying to understand queer intimacy, my relationships with loved ones, and how feelings are communicated through the impressions left by the space around me. I make the case that intimacy is a thing to be worked on and pulled out from the private and into the public to be reflected upon and shared.




