Carolyn Castano in Honolulu

How cool was it to run across a couple pieces by Carolyn Castano at the First Friday art walk in Honolulu after mentioning her here, in my blog?

http://foodshethought.blogspot.com/2008/04/phantom-sightings-art-after-chicano.html

I was first taken with her work at LACMA during the Phantom Sightings exhibit. Here us a blurb about her from the LA Times.

http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/theguide/la-gd-art1-2008may01,0,1279869.story

She is adjuct faculty at Chapman University, and here is their brief bio about her:

Carolyn Castaño is a Los Angeles-based artist whose work explores notions of desire, consumerism and artifice through mixed-media paintings, works on paper and video. Her work has been recently featured at The Pasadena Museum of California Art in Liquid Los Angeles: Contemporary Watercolor Painting, International Paper at the Hammer Museum, Semi-Precious at The Public Art Fund, New York, and Three Great Walls and Bay Area Now at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco. European venues include LA Now: Emerging Artists, Galerie Dominique Fiat, Paris and Honey-Traps at 38 Langham Street in London. She has had solo exhibitions with Kontainer Gallery, Los Angeles and Lombard-Fried Fine Art in New York. Carolyn's work will be featured in an upcoming exhibition at LACMA, Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement, scheduled to open April 2008. She has a Masters in Fine Art from UCLA and a Bachelors in Fine Art from the San Francisco Art Institute."

These are the two installations painted directly on the walls at the gallery in Honolulu's Chinatown.





Chinatown reminds me very much of Hayes Valley in San Francisco, about 15 years ago. There is an interesting mix of ethnic influences, a few dive bars, a couple of edgy restaurants and a crowd (on First Friday anyway) of non-touristy humans roaming the streets, popping in and out of galleries and shops and saying hello to their friends. This was truly a treat.