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'Confusion is next and next after that is the truth' by Jonathan Castro Alejos at Jan van Eyck Academie Open Studios, Maastricht



Jonathan Castro’s graphic designs evolved from an adolescence spent in noise shows and his fascination with the synthesizing aesthetics of subcultural fanzines. His imagery is based on the kind of immersion into sensation that noise concert demand of the audience. Growing up in Peru during a time of particularly intense social unrest, he saw the underground concerts as a place where people could work through their own powerlessness in the face of structural instability. The conflict also incited many people to move to Lima from more rural parts of Peru.The hybrid cultural expressions that resulted from this internal displacement produced a dynamic synthesis of vivid colors in public space that Castro still considers the foundation of his palette. It also motivates his research into sound bleed and visual feedback static. He sees these as forms that emerge when a given system is overloaded with information, pushed to its limit, and made to speak to multiple truths at once. 

For Castro, making these tensions visible is an act of resistance. He is interested in the ways in which confusion can elicit a textured emotional response from the viewer. Mixing aesthetics and philosophies with the pluralities of music, the images he createsare rich, chromatic, and embodied manifestations of a living spirit.

The space and objects give residence to emotions, memories, speculation and associations for a possible re-orientation of the present, and for larger questions of what constitutes consciousness and the boundaries of abstraction.

5.3.20 — 7.3.20

Jan van Eyck Academie

'ABSINTHE', Group Show Curated by PLAGUE at Smena, Kazan

'Pupila' by Elizabeth Burmann Littin at Two seven two gallery, Toronto

'Auxiliary Lights' by Kai Philip Trausenegger at Bildraum 07, Vienna

'Inferno' by Matthew Tully Dugan at Lomex, New York

'Зamok', Off-Site Group Project at dentistry Dr. Blumkin, Moscow

'Dog, No Leash', Group Show at Spazio Orr, Brescia

'Syllables in Heart' by Thomas Bremerstent at Salgshallen, Oslo

'Out-of-place artifact', Off-Site Project by Artem Briukhov in Birsk Fortress, Bi

'Gardening' by Daniel Drabek at Toni Areal, Zurich

'HALF TRUTHS', Group Show at Hackney Road, E2 8ET, London

'Unknown Unknowns' by Christian Roncea at West End, The Hague

'Thinking About Things That Are Thinking' by Nicolás Lamas at Meessen De Clercq,

‘Funny / Sad’, Group Show by Ian Bruner, Don Elektro & Halo, curated by Rhizome P

'Don’t Die', Group Show at No Gallery, New York

'Almost Begin' by Bronson Smillie at Afternoon Projects, Vancouver

'I'll Carry Your Heart's Gray Wing with a Trembling Hand to My Old Age', Group Sh

'hapy like a fly' by Clément Courgeon at Colette Mariana, Barcelona

'Fear of the Dark' by Jack Evans at Soup, London

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