Giovanni Castell

When using the latest digital editing techniques, photographic and painting elements merge: Castell mixes fragments of his own photographs and elements he has come across on the Internet with renderings, i.e. virtual drawings and paintings which he has created himself, with the photographic fragments being pushed increasingly into the background and then as it were disappearing completely, as for example in the new series of landscapes. Everything here has been created digitally. Castell’s intention is not to imitate or interpret, but to create a new reality. The artist has perceived his spaces and landscapes – but not in reality, but rather in his mind’s eye, and he turns these into images, just as a painter does. His artworks are not photographs, they are paintings. Castell is an explorer and visionary in the use of these new possibilities. He creates paintings both cheerful as well as melancholy, overwhelming as well as touching, romantic, dreamy places of longing, mysterious, surreal urban landscapes, beautiful, impressionistic nature scenes. And he provides a totally personal reply to the question as to what painting – even more than photography – can mean today.