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

Early life and education

Rosana Castrillo Diaz was born in

Sama de Langreo Sama or SAMA may refer to: Places * Sama, Burkina Faso, a town in the Kouka Department, Banwa Province, Burkina Faso * Sama, China (Sanya), a city in Hainan, China * Sama, Chalus, a village in Mazandaran Province, Iran * Sama, Nowshahr, a villag ...

, Asturias,

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

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

Complutense University of Madrid The Complutense University of Madrid ( es, Universidad Complutense de Madrid; UCM, links=no, ''Universidad de Madrid'', ''Universidad Central de Madrid''; la, Universitas Complutensis Matritensis, links=no) is a public research university loca ...

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 firs ...

. 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 the art school of Tufts University, a private research university in Boston, Massachus ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

. 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 admini ...

degree from

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

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 and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

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

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

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 archive associated with the University of California, Berkeley. Lawrence Rinder was Director from ...

, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, the

Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts Established in 1998, the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts is a contemporary art center in San Francisco, California, US, and part of the California College of the Arts. It holds exhibitions, lectures, and symposia, releases publications, and ...

and

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

. 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 extremely thin elastic plates. This characteristic is described as perfect basal cleavage. Mica is ...

, 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 an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

, New York, NY;

, San Francisco, CA;

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

, San Francisco, CA; and

Mills College Art Museum Mills College Art Museum is a museum and art gallery in Oakland, California. The originally all-girls' school Mills College was founded by Susan and Cyrus Mills, who were both interested in art and history. Susan's sister Jane Tolman was an ar ...

, 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