JACKIE CASTILLO

Born in Santa Ana, California

Lives and works in Los Angeles, California

Jackie Castillo examines the isolation and anxiety of the working class by investigating the relationship between infrastructure, urban development, and collective memory. She typically turns to the Southern California suburban and urban landscapes to expose scenes and objects that call into question this pathos.

Often photographing dwellings that are in the process of renovation, Castillo brings housing into focus as a commodity. By shooting the gutted spaces and discarded materials of the “fix and flip” process, the artist highlights the way capitalism perceives a house not as a home, but as an investment portfolio object.

Utilizing the visual vernacular of surface, material, and ruins, Castillo creates installations to examine how an internalized loss of identity may render the self as unreal, estranged, and in various states of invisibility. At the same time, she creates space for metaphor and abstraction within images and installations that propose alternative narratives to the power structures that are currently set in place.

Jackie Castillo studied at the School of Photography at Orange Coast College (2011-2014), received her BFA from UCLA (2018), and is currently working on her MFA at the University of Southern California.

Visit the artist’s Instagram: www.instagram.com/caminadas