Artist: José Castiella
Dates: November 14th 2024 to January 7th 2025

6.522. There are, indeed, things that are inexpressible. They show themselves.

They are what is mystical.[i]

In the light of reason, a creak of wood, a moving shadow behind the window or a pile of clothes on a chair are just what they seem, but there are times when we truly believe we have seen something else, or at least felt it. Certain phenomena occasionally acquire a life of their own, like a parallel reality that reveals itself to the beholder, like the beings in José Castiella’s paintings. These entities present themselves to the artist as the fruits of his research into and observation of painting itself, not as the result of pareidolia but by treating the blots in a narrative manner. In his work, Castiella plays with chance and accuracy in equal parts to make us question our cosmogony, our way of understanding our surroundings, recovering elements of the Christian worldview that has had such a profound influence on us. It is a modern, personal take on this story, though which the artist brings us closer to the contemporary imaginary by using scenarios more typical of science fiction and creating a surrealist world in which expressionism inhabits structuralism[ii].

In this worldview, and in our general episteme, God is the creator of everything. He makes us in his image and likeness and therefore we are all subcreators, bearers of a given creativity. Around this concept of subcreation is built the whole anthropology and literary theology of Tolkien, undoubtedly one of the fathers of fantasy in our era. This concept of subcreation is something that we see reflected in Castiella’s work and especially his discourse. These fantasy worlds, Castiella’s or Tolkien’s, are real but simply not in our register; to penetrate them is to point to the truth, to enter into an experience of almost mystical, transcendent, evocative beauty with a touch of nostalgia, as when we miss something we have not yet discovered. Castiella brings this sub-reality to life with the mixture that the Coen brothers do so well in their films; a caricature of reality somewhere between sinister and tender. The artist, like any true subcreator, does not have a specific plan when it comes to executing his projects. It is the truth itself that takes the reins of his imagination, carried away by the underworlds that live in and among us. “The work comes first”, says Castiella, “I don’t like to structure everything, I want to leave room for creation, for chance… The work comes first”. This is something that happens to those who know how to listen, how to observe and feel what reality tells us. The Wittgensteinian “inexpressible” that exists but we cannot describe. It may be painting or it may be God, but something guides these artists, speaks to them, like the Flame Imperishable of Ilúvatar. Chance, ordered in perfect perspectives, continues to speak to Castiella who, like Escher, finds in the awareness of its presence a kind of inner peace.[iii]

With his own narrative and stylistic codes, José Castiella takes us into this universe of chance and mathematical exactitude. The surrealist manifesto, which is now celebrating its first centenary, announced the artistic experience as an adventure for the soul, a spiritual adventure. “So strong is the belief in life, in what is most fragile in life – real life, I mean – that in the end this belief is lost”, is how the manifesto begins. With My Job, we invite you to recapture your belief, see beyond the cold reality and enjoy the unexplainable.

Inés Alonso Jarabo

[i] L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Alianza, Madrid 1973, p. 203.

[ii]“Structuralism now explores the visual-tactile organisation of the actual colour and form in space and light (…) Structuralist art has reinstated what we can feel and touch as a visual-tactile art. I do not mean that we perceive a structurist relief with our hands or sense of touch, but rather that the relief is kinesthetically tactile”. “Notes on structurist process”, in Hill, A., Data: Directions in art, theory and aesthetics, Londres, Faber and Faber, 1969, p. 196.

[iii]“The laws of the phenomena around us – order, regularity, cyclical repetition, and renewals – have assumed greater and greater importance for me. The awareness of their presence gives me peace and provides me with support. I try in my prints to testify that we live in a beautiful and orderly world, and not in a formless chaos, as it sometimes seems.

My subjects are also often playful: I cannot refrain from demonstrating the nonsensicalness of some of what we take to be irrefutable certainties. It is, for example, a pleasure to deliberately mix together objects of two and three dimensions, surface and spatial relationships, and to make fun of gravity.” M.C. Escher in his acceptance speech upon being awarded the Cultural Prize of the City of Hilversum, 5 March 1965.