ARTIST INFO

ERIN CASTELLAN
Bakersville, NC

TEXTILES | Embroidery and painting

Penland Affiliation | Penland Student 2024, current Penland School staff

Artist Information | Studio artist; education: MFA Indiana University, Bloomington (IN), BFA Rhode Island School of Design (RI); teaching: Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (TN), Peters Valley School of Crafts (NJ), Snow Farm: The New England Craft Program (MA), Warren Wilson College (NC), Blue Ridge Community College (NC), Indiana University (IN); residencies: Silver Streak Residency (MT), Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (TN), Pratt Fine Arts Center (WA); exhibitions: Tracey Morgan Gallery (NC), Blue Spiral 1 Gallery (NC), The Mint Museum (NC), Cerulean Arts Gallery (PA), Kyoto Int’l Community House (JAPAN), Dunedin Fine Art Center (FL), Ess Ef Eff (NY), Artspace (NC)

Artist Statement | In this digital age of slick screens and quick images, I craft physical images that promote slow viewing experiences and intimate, tactile engagements. I am interested in the idea of slow seeing. Particularly, I am interested in how efforts to slow and carefully examine the physical world can connect humans to their surroundings and each other with empathy and compassion.

I consider how the measurable time I put into each piece influences not only the length, but also the quality of a viewer’s perceptual involvement. For example, I believe viewers become entangled in visually picking apart the minute details of the embroidered stitches, but their captivation may also be driven by a desire for the intimacy and human interaction that is embodied in each stitch.

My work cannot be known in an instant. Tactile curiosities, optical illusions, and relationships that connect across forms are slowly revealed to viewers who take their time in looking. I mix the shiny with the dull, the labored with the spontaneous, and the actual with the illusory. These rhythms, tensions, and material transitions are slow pleasures – to be savored again and again without a rush for meaning.