Victor Castillo is a painter currently residing in Los Angeles, California. He was born in Santiago de Chile in 1973.
He began drawing obsessively at the age of five, inspired by the animations he saw on television, science fiction movies, and the illustrations on his familyâs record covers such as Pink Floydâs âThe Wallâ. Following a disillusive experience with art school that ended with his being expelled, Victor participated in an independent experimental art collective in Santiago, creating mixed media sculpture and video installations.
Victor moved to Barcelona, Spain in 2004, where he established his painting style with references to comics. After seeing the Prado Museum in Madrid, particularly Goyaâs Black Paintings, he adopted aspects of classical painting in his work. Working with the legendary Igaupop Gallery until its closing in 2010, Victor began to show his work internationally.
Today Victor Castillo is represented by Merry Karnowsky Gallery in Los Angeles and shows with Helium Cowboy in Hamburg and Jonathan Levine Gallery in New York. His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in Chile, Spain, the United States, Germany, France, England, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, China, Argentina, Brazil, and Columbia, as well as in numerous publications.
Among other installations, Victor has created large-scale indoor murals for the National Museum of Fine Arts (MNBA) in Santiago, Chile; the Museum of Modern Art in Chiloe; and the Center for Contemporary Culture Barcelona (CCCB), Spain.