The Artist
Welcome to my art website. I appreciate your time and participation in what I consider one of the more important subjects, namely "art". Please feel free to contact me with any questions or to be included in email updates about upcoming shows. I can be reached by email at info@castagnastudio.com. In addition my work is represented by Rolly-Michaux Gallery (617.536.9898) located at 290 Dartmouth Street in Boston. A solo exhibition of new work entitled L`Ombra dell`Italia was held there in November and December of 2009. Currently one can view work from that show and a full catalogue of available images at the gallery.
I`ve been photographing now for nearly 20 years. Art has been in my blood since youth and was rediscovered later. I`m a full-fledged photographer, photographing weddings and other events (see Robert Castagna Photography) for about 12 years now and working on my art for much longer. My passion is art and I`m constantly searching for new ways of expressing myself through art and photography. One of my favorite techniques is using shallow depth of field to create abstractions. Much of my Kyoto Series has developed into a method of confining or abstracting nature or its elements. I prefer to single out details from the whole via the frame of the camera or depth of focus. Other than this I have a fondness for capturing people unobtrusively and in their environment. This started off with black and white street photography years ago and has merged into wedding and event photography today.
My first series of work was black and white photographs of Copley Square which were shown in a solo exhibition in the Boston Public Library. Work from this series and other black and whites of a similar nature were then acquired by the library for its permanent collection. This exhibition was followed up with photographs of Harvard Square, using the Square itself as the exhibition venue, photographs were scattered throughout storefronts and store-windows in a broad show entitled the Harvard Square Document. Images from these early shows were also exhibited in the Danforth Museum of Art.
Later I was fortunate enough to be selected as an artist for Rolly-Michaux Gallery. Since then I have had two solo exhibitions in their gallery: Kyoto in its Season and L`Ombra dell`Italia (The Shadow of Italy). I look forward to continuing to work with Rolly-Michaux in shows to come and one can continue to acquire limited edition fine art prints from them. In addition I am eager for my first museum solo exhibition at The Art Complex Museum in the summer of 2011. In preparation for this show I will be making further trips to Japan. Meanwhile I like to experiment and hope to see you soon!