Tropic botanics + bright stripes: new from Carolyn Castaño!

Tropical Geometries Ruana Interruption (Red and Gold) by Carolyn Castaño
10"x8" ($35) | 14"x11" ($75) | 20"x16" ($260) | 30"x24" ($1350) | 40"x30" ($2500)

Collect this edition

Summer? We hardly knew her. But before she officially exits stage right (not until 9/22, people!) we’re debuting a limited-edition print that really sums up the season’s energy—something we’ll wanna be looking at all the time once winter gets her way, a literal bright spot as the days grow darker. It’s a new piece from LA-based artist Carolyn Castaño, and we couldn’t be happier that it’s here to resuscitate our walls. Tropical Geometries Ruana Interruption (Red and Gold) is requisite (and reinvigorating) viewing.

Castaño’s second edition pulses with super saturated warm tones, gutsy stripes, and lush, tropical plant life. The masterful color clashing keeps you on the edge of your seat, as does the contrast between her curvaceous flora and semi-transparent, diluted hues, and those crisp, bold chevrons. The geometric lines call to mind nature’s symmetry, a linear representation of organic equilibrium. There’s a lot of visual pleasure at play in that balance. All the indoor plant people out there with their urban jungles will probably find another type of pleasure in identifying the subjects at center. We spy what looks like Philodendron, Croton Gold Dust, Hibiscus, Plumeria—a mini Eden of equatorial botanics.

For Ruana Interruption (Red and Gold) and similar works, Castaño taps into a rich history of botanical illustration and topographical painting, merging landscape with patterns that add a sharp, electric edge to the softness of her sumptuously rendered leaf and flower forms. Castaño’s patterns are both modernist in design, and inspired by Pre-Columbian textile arts—intricate, balanced, emphasizing line and angle, drawing the eye in. These aren’t your classical landscapes, but rather a new sort of space all together, another dimension suspended between geometric abstraction and natural scenery. Landscape and geometry each hold their own here, dynamically individual but in exciting harmony. In part, this juxtaposition offers Castaño a way to re-envision “progress” and “modernity” in a theoretical Latin America untouched by exploitative capitalism. It’s a figurative reimagining combining disparate art traditions to picutre the power of possibility.

You can read more about Castaño’s work and activism in this Artist Spotlight. And you can collect Ruana Interruption (Red and Gold) right now. Do future you a favor—once the temps drop, this tropical stunner will be the next best thing to a warm weather vacay.

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