PRESS RELEASE
Rosana Castrillo Díaz
30 June – 31 July 2009
Opening reception: Friday, 26 June, 6 to 8 pm
Anthony Meier Fine Arts is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by San Francisco artist Rosana Castrillo Díaz. Castrillo Díaz's second gallery exhibition exudes a quietness and simplicity that belies the rigid structural details of her works construction.
Showing a suite of dense and intricate graphite on paper drawings as well as looser wall relief sculptures made individually of cotton batting and silk paper, Castrillo Díaz employs varying mediums to the same end. Her investigation of the fine line separating representation and abstraction and the nuances of shadow and light highlights her adept use of materials.
In a new body of reliefs, Castrillo Díaz manipulates silk tissue paper painted with mica into three-dimensional wall works. Folding, layering and tearing the tissue creates a depth of shadow distinct to the micas surface that shimmers and reflects light. This contrasting play of light illuminates the work from within.
Hovering at the edge of perception is another debut, a series of tall vertical strips of cotton quilt batting that dissolve and reappear as light moves through and around. The delineation of visual line is further blurred by the deceptive depth of shadow created by the thin strips.
The elusive and ephemeral qualities of Castrillo Díaz's works require the viewer to focus. Her graphite drawings contain details that could easily be overlooked in a fleeting glance. Her use of ordinary and fragile materials to transcend the tangible and question lines of perception is masterful.
Castrillo Díaz is in the collection of the SFMOMA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the UC Berkeley Art Museum and the Mills College Art Museum. The UCSF Mission Bay campus features a permanent wall mural on the second floor of their Community Center building. A site-specific commission by the artist is currently on view on the bridge to the new San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Rooftop Garden.