ON DISPLAY: July 3-Aug. 28, 2025
Opening reception: July 10, 6:30-8pm
Artist’s Statement
– born of Chaos, showcases collages and silkscreen prints in which pattern, layering and color are explored as an expression of abundance, and the body is explored as a site of action, where rest, joy, softness and pleasure become radical acts. Richly layered surfaces are covered in pattern that accumulates within the body as a representation of joy, pleasure, and sensuality. The work in this exhibition is an expression of the fragility, mutability and resilience of the body as well as its inclusion in larger webs of life connecting all living things.
A large series of variable silkscreen prints takes figurative shapes culled from Castaldo’s collage practice and combines them with pattern layered and repeated, in many different combinations and color ways, 14 of which appear in this exhibition. The visual bombardment of beauty and excess invites the viewer in as much as it may repel, both overwhelming and exciting the eyes, imploring one to get lost in looking. In a series of collages, fragmented and hybrid bodily forms intertwine with plant imagery and patterns that construct intimate and fantastical environments. Two silkscreen editions designed in an endless repeat, similar to wallpaper, depict the luxuries of leisure and togetherness as sensuous pleasurable acts that are essential to our wellbeing and connection, and for imagining a better world. Small bits of pattern accumulate mass in an act of generating abundance in a world of manufactured scarcity.
The exhibition title references our current times as well as the chaos inherent in the work itself. “– born of Chaos,” is a direct quote from the essay “Uses of the Erotic” by Audre Lorde. Lorde discusses the erotic as passionate emotion and creative energy, and an assertion of a feminine life force that can be a means of reconnecting with our inner power as a tool for decolonizing our bodies and minds and forging a better way forward together.
Bio
Elizabeth Castaldo is a Peekskill based artist, printmaker, and bookbinder. Working with collage, drawing, and printmaking she creates visually abundant works on paper and artist’s books reflecting on the body and nature. She was a 2024 art-in-ed workspace resident at Women’s Studio Workshop and will be an artist in residence at the Alfred University Institute for Electronic Arts this coming October. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is held in many private and institutional collections.