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Historical Note

Oscar Castillo – Artist Narrative: As a youth my parents influenced me in that my mother kept a family photo album, which I keep now, in which our family photos and memories were kept. These were not just snapshots, but now I can see that they are well composed as well as tell a story by the choice of locations as well as depicting different people. My photography carries on my early memories of community, family and a sense of place, although I have chosen to look at a much larger extended family and community. Since I'm of Hispanic and Native American heritage, my work is very influenced and reflects these backgrounds while at the same time make a universal statement. As a multi discipline artist I work in different media such as drawing, painting, stained glass, ceramics, and mixed media, but with a main emphasis on photography as art. While in Japan, during the mid 1960's, I was very influenced by the cultural and environmental beauty of that country and I began a serious study of photography to document my experiences while there. This fascination with cultural, social and political documentation has continued to this day with my personal and artist photography reflecting my sense of community. In the late 1960's I enrolled in college with a dual major of Sociology and Fine Art. In the more than 30 years that I have been producing art images, there are cycles of recurring themes and a metamorphism of images and ideas. Some pieces are stand-alone images, while in others I combined photos into juxtaposed or organically combined collages. While some of my photos are also photo journalistic others are painterly. I work in traditional dark room printing as well as digitally created and manipulated and printed photography. Artist statement courtesy of Oscar Castillo

Born June 24th 1945, Castillo grew up on El Paso Texas. The family moved to Washington State in 1962 and he later attended Belmont High School in Los Angeles and Cal State Northridge College; he graduated in 1974. Born to parents of Mexican American and American parentage, Oscar counts as his milestones, his move to Washington State from Texas, joining the Marine where he was based in Japan and his time participating in and documenting the Chicano Civil Rights Movement.