ABClatino Magazine Year 8 Issue 4 | Page 15

Invitada / Guest: Elisa Pritzker

Spirits of Resistance, 2023 oil on paper, mixed media, 30” x 6ft

 

Fotos por / Photos by Sevan Melikyan

cupltures

Artista / Artist: Gerardo Castro

Curadora / Curator: Elisa Pritzker

Gerardo Castro was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico. He earned a master's degree in painting from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, in 1996 and has been exhibiting his work nationally and internationally.

As a contemporary Afro-Puerto Rican artist, her work illustrated the multiplicity of the Afro-Caribbean experience by addressing themes of colonization, queer history, ritual performance cultures, and gender. His use of color was not passive, he did not shy away from it. Color was a form of resistance – it's the language HR used to celebrate the visual texture of her Black culture, as well as to affirm that her queer Latino identity is a means of empowerment.

Gerardo Castro was the co-organizer of the 13th annual Newburgh OPEN Studios and The Lightbulb Project:

A public art experience.

Conjuring the Past, 2022

oil on paper, mixed media, 30” x 6ft