The Paintings of Xavier Castellanos​

​Xavier was born in Geneva, Switzerland where he spent his childhood. He started painting at the age of four. His first solo exhibit was in Mexico City at the age of sixteen. He studied Fine Arts at The Art Students League of New York.
After a series of successful exhibits, he won public acclaim and admission into the Mexican art circles. His works are held in some museums and in numerous private and corporate collections. His talent has received recognition from masters such as Jose Luis Cuevas and Raul Anguiano. Since 1989 he has done more than 70 one-artist shows  in the United States, Mexico and Europe, and has participated in more than 70 group exhibitions in the world.
He is a "unique blend": Swiss born and raised, French educated, Mexican artist/designer/thinker. He lived five years in New York City, and over half of his life in San Francisco, California. He lives now between Mexico and in Europe (in the Fall) where he paints and exhibits.
He has travelled in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Japan, South East Asia, Morocco, Egypt and all over Europe, including the Baltics, Turkey and St. Petersburg. His favorite places are (too many...): France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Berlin, San Francisco, New York and Mexico...

​​“I often think of poetry and painting as the same art form where colorful strokes and words connect to create a unified whole. Just as literary artists often convey a story between the lines of a text, I paint visions between colors and between ideas. I juxtapose intense and original figures (and sometimes  overwhelming urban landscapes) with premonitory dreams.

    I consider some of my paintings as enigmatic “maps” that negotiate real and emotional space. In this way, the figures, buildings and symbols drifting through the paintings may be thought of as the cartography of these “maps”. The viewer has to elucidate them in order for him to read the artist, and, as a result, to read the inside himself. In the maps remanents become revitalize, erased fragments reappear, and signs and symbols talk to themselves. Perhaps they speak quietly about invisible mirrors, old laberynths, or the inescapable death. I portray figures in a real context (or community) where all orders become mixed and confused: animal, vegetable and mineral...

    I paint between rigidity and overflow, large uniform surfaces next to small, busy detailed sections, in order to show that there is movement, an ebb and a flow of iconographies. I want to point out, among many things and as others have before me, the relationships of groups of existing emotional figures with their social actions, or lack of them.”

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