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Bio/notes
Paul
James
Castagna
was born to second generation Italian and Corsican parents
in the seaport of Ashland Wisconsin again
in 1946. He began painting seriously when he was about
sixteen years old after seeing a full moon obscured by
clouds on a summer night while walking home in the little
village of Pence where he grew up. The sky seemed black and
the clear air and soft breeze blew through the silhouettes
of the tall trees behind his house. The next morning he took
out his mothers paints and began trying to capture the
impression he'd seen the night before on a panel with thick
oil paint. It was a terrible painting but what he lacked in
technique was compensated by passion.. it only resembled
what he had seen... still it was one small step .a simple
beginning to an obscure career.
Paul attended a
University in Wisconsin and then moved to Denver where he
worked very hard to purge himself of his education and from
the whole disease of Western Tradition, Art History, and
Modernism. Ho hum.
In 1986 he showed some
small paintings in Paris France and also did a series of
paintings for the magazine Yellow Silk(which I believe is
still being published).
a few years later he
had another showing in a small gallery in Colorado
Springs.
After relocating to
Northern Wisconsin where he currently lives, he set up
another studio in his home and continue to paint and compose
music there even as we speak. Having little or no interest
in Art Galleries, he shows his work exclusively online and
in private showings.
"I paint because
painting is an important act.
I paint for myself and
for those people who have some appreciation for this
work.
I paint as the spirit
moves me, and I refuse to cripple my spirit into a single
style that galleries can use merely as a marketing
device.
Profit is being able
to work.
When someone else
appreciates the work enough to pay for it, that is just
icing on the cake.
The paintings speak
for themselves.
I don't judge them or
analyze them while I'm working.
I let them
speak.
They are an
instrument, I am an instrument, and the viewer is also an
instrument.
Myth is
important.
the paintings are a
kind of myth.
They don't tell a
story.
They are part of a
larger story.
The viewer may find
his own story in them.
Some of them have
musical counterparts.
They express what
can't be expressed with music or words.
Painting is another
language.
It's a direct language
like music.
like very slow
music.
and like every other
language , it must be learned.
even by the
painter.
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