Most of them have sprouted and blossomed along Culver City’s industrially tinted eastern perimeter.
Even the bluest-collared aesthete was taught as a child that timing can be transformative, and undeniably it was.
The Right Hour
At the 5 o’clock hour yesterday, the young artist Jane Castillo — marvelously inventive, non-traditional, self-propelled — would offer commentary on her unique exhibit at Joshua Kaplan’s Bandini Gallery, 2635 S. Fairfax Ave.
Finding a gallery in the bosom of an industrial island, just south of Washington Boulevard, is comparable to glancing skyward and reaping the aesthetic reward of a magnificent rainbow at the finish of a storm.
In the Gloaming
Amidst the embracing serenity of the wondrously calming late-afternoon gloaming, Ms. Castillo’s month-long exhibit, Curves, a tribute to paper, illumined with the glow of a lover’s wink across the dance floor.
She has attempted, and succeeded, in converting the mundanity of paper into a near ethereal vision.
Diminutive and stylish, vivacious and cerebral — characteristics that are not always teammates, in artists or Martians — Ms. Castillo’s creativity has managed to not just muffle but vanquish the lunchpail brigade that is parading home down Fairfax.
Happy Face
She smiles frequently, almost as if she fears she will forget how if she doesn’t practice.
Many young artists may claim to be self-made, perhaps because long ago their families abandoned any same-century possibility of a meat-sandwich income being earned.
In Ms. Castillo’s low-key but bristlingly industrious universe, she discovered early that her mind, her heart and her hands all were gifted with harmonizing talents for art.
Common Talent?
In childhood, she was not impressed with what she could do.
“I thought everybody could do what I was doing,” she said.
Sort of like concluding that cats go “meow” or that dogs go “bow-wow,” she mused.
Her brother and her parents loved her, but saluting her drawings did not seem to be in the family’s script.
A Purple Lady?
If she was waiting to be complimented, she would have turned purple.
Classmates used to ask her to perform their drawing tasks in grammar school, which she instinctively resented. She thought they were just trying to evade an assignment. Then she noticed. The quality of their drawings was worlds below the level of her work.
As her talent for artistry swelled through her girlhood and young womanhood, there was no chance for her head to swell because her splendid ability seemed to be a secret.
Where Was Insight?
Hardly anybody noticed the vibrations. An artist was developing in their midst.
And that really is an amazing dimension of Jane Castillo’s story.
Not until her junior year at university did a professional adult even openly commend her work.
On Her Own
Her steadfast persistence is a modern definition of self-made.
In the few years since earning her graduate degree, Ms. Castillo, clear-eyed, has steered her career down the exact path she deigned years ago.
Standing at the eastern end of the rectangularly shaped display area at the Bandini Gallery, her five-part piece — sheets of artist’s paper, suspended by industrial strength chains, in ascending, or descending, order — dominates the room, just as she had planned.
The curls and carefully shredded strips at the bottom give a visitor pause for meditation.
Super Scope
Each rectangular piece is 10 feet tall. In its entirety, the exhibit is about 45 feet in length.
If the totality of Ms. Castillo’s latest work is not slightly overwhelming, think of shaking hands with a steroids-favoring dinosaur.
The sheer scope of Curves will plumb your mind, soberly tickling your psyche for reactions, as deftly as a gravedigger intersecting a freshly drenched plot of earth.
‘My Gosh’
(As a curious aside: Journalistic detectives often scout for character clues hidden among otherwise unremarkable responses. Tellingly, perhaps, Ms. Castillo stepped back several times when questions were posed and said, “My gosh,” as she reached for precise answers. “My gosh” is locutionally absent among 100 percent of her fellow Gen-X’ers. Its significance is left for a visitor to ponder.)
Ms. Castillo introduces herself as an installation artist, meaning that she utilizes the capacity of the space available to her at Bandini.
She, however, will define her lifework more artfully.
By Definition
“Installation,” she explains, “is a non-traditional approach to artmaking.
“The gallery becomes your canvas, much in the way a painter will contemplate a two-dimensional work.
“An installation artist contemplates the entire space as a canvas.
“It become very much a three-dimensional experience,” Ms. Castillo said.
“The aesthetic experience is far more amplified — it depends on where you are standing in the installation as to what your aesthetic experience will be.”
Anyone Would Notice
In the absorbingly modern setting of Mr. Kaplan’s Bandini art emporium, even a tone-deaf visitor realizes that long gone are the days when an art gallery guest studies a mere modest-sized wall painting.
Modern or traditional, however, a guest’s choreography remains an immutable factor.
Whether with Ms. Castillo’s exhibit Curves or a conventional painting.
A little to the left.
A little to the right for changing, fulfilling perspectives.
You have 2 1/2 weeks to study this imaginative display — Tuesdays through Saturdays at the Bandini Gallery, from 11 to 5.
