(Editor’s Note: Original interview conducted in Spanish, then translated into English.)
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La Nacion Tigre, tufting and embroidery on canvas, 120cm x 90cm
Multicolored Characters & Worlds
I first saw Amecas’ work in late 2024, during a solo show entitled Psicosonidero Multicolorido (Multicolored Psychosound) at Kaku Secret Gallery in Oaxaca. The space — less a formal art gallery and more an event venue — invited Castillo to take over the entire space with a series of cohesive works. Such works included more than a half-dozen brightly-tufted wool rugs that were hung on the walls as well as a piece featuring the word “OUTSIDER” in neon lettering, placed above a large throne made out of recycled materials.
During the opening, the cavernous space was cast in darkness and activated by a performance in which Amecas donned a somewhat grotesque homemade textile mask and used blacklight to illuminate each piece one-by-one. The experience immediately sparked my attention, simply because it contained an energy of controlled messiness that I don’t often see in the city.
“I’m a very colorful person,” Castillo explains in Spanish. “Something I like about tufting or wool is that you don’t have a midtone. The colors are just so raw… I really like that because it’s very vibrant, very colorful. That’s why I chose to do all of this in wool, in a way, and because of the relief and texture it creates.”
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Baile Psicodelico (Psychedelic Dance), tufting and embroidery on canvas, 120cm x 90cm
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Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead), tufting and embroidery on canvas, 120cm x 90cm
Inside Castillo’s apartment, I am once again able to revisit some of the tufted rugs. Indeed, the medium plays well with his artistic style, which brings immediate joy with its child-like sense of wonder, yet simultaneously shows a deep level of artistic control and prowess.
All the pieces feature characters from Amecas’ imagination, which are then woven into settings that take inspiration or symbolism from his life. The tufted rugs are also mounted on canvas and feature embroidered embellishments that let the work run off the page, so to speak, offering an added “oomph” and delightful eye-teasing quality.
Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) — a piece that pays homage to the Mexican cultural celebration which takes place every fall — shows how Castillo weaves influences from the country naturally into his work. Placed throughout the piece are little gems: scraggly crosses, candy-colored skulls, and marigolds, also known as cempasúchil, which bloom in November and are somewhat synonymous with the holiday.
“We made it in reference to the marigold flowers that bloom in November,” Castillo comments, as he leads me around the room to share about the origins of each piece. “Obviously, my work has… a little with México and a little with my life… the hand-embroidered details that I added have to do with the piece itself. For example, when you pass away, the worms are supposed to eat you… so that’s why I added something like the snake.”
For Castillo, working with textiles is also a commentary on tradition and gender. A press release about the tufted works notes, “Embroidery is an ancestral technique, practiced over generations, primarily by women in México. However, this project also incorporates men into the creative process, reflecting a shift in the traditional dynamics of the craft.”
Another piece, entitled Capitán Turquesa (Captain Turquoise), prominently features a character that looks like a pirate, with ocean waves sloshing behind him in the background. Utilizing brightly-dyed shades of blue-greens, it is inspired by the Mexican Caribbean, which has left a deep impression upon Amecas.
“I lived there for four years, so in a way, I have a bit of a pirate soul,” Castillo explains. “Every work I do has something to do with it — although it seems very friendly, perhaps very decorative… it has a little more depth.”
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Capitán Turquesa (Captain Turquoise), tufting and embroidery on canvas, 90cm x 120cm
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Descenso al Mictlan (Descent to Mictlan), tufting and embroidery on canvas, 120cm x 90cm
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Tropi Diablo, tufting and embroidery on canvas, 63cm x 8cm
Finding Brief Calm as a Wandering Spirit
Born in México City, raised in Guadalajara, and now located in Oaxaca, Castillo has spent the past decade traversing México and large swathes of Latin America with Soley, staying put for only months at a time. Living what they describe as a “semi-nomadic lifestyle,” the two decided to move to Oaxaca in 2021 and have stayed ever since, even if they have dreams of eventually moving on.
The relative stability of being in Oaxaca for years — as well as losing other employment during the COVID-19 pandemic — have led Castillo to pursue visual art with more seriousness and intention than ever before.
Yet as a primarily self-taught artist, such a desire has forced Castillo to learn more about art world formalities, full of elaborately-written descriptions and the sometimes closed-off white-walled galleries. Such things are somewhat antithetical to Castillo’s nature, which he calls “un poco rebelde,” or “a little rebellious.” Perhaps that mentality lies in the ways that he first came to find art as an outlet.
In a press release regarding his large-scale, Basquiat-esque paintings, Castillo shares in Spanish, “When I was 7-years-old, an event marked my life: the death of my mother… crying, I ran for a sheet of paper and colors; I couldn’t even speak at that time, but I could draw, and that’s how I expressed my feelings!”
“The years passed, and my beings grew with me: monsters, psychedelic parties, beings from other worlds, from this world, skulls, ghosts, emotions, colors that are part of my soul, of what I am, of Amecas,” he concludes.
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Mágico 3 (Magic 3), mixed media on canvas, 130cm x 150cm
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Portal Mágico (Magic Portal), mixed media on canvas, 120cm x 150cm
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Mergulhando en la jungla de asfalto (Mergulhando in the Concrete Jungle), mixed media on canvas, 150cm x 120cm
While many of the worlds that Amecas creates can feel sweet and friendly — even when they feature ghostly beings or unknown symbols — they can also at times be raw and angry. Castillo prefers to work in larger pieces, as their scale allows him a sense of freedom of movement which allows him to more accurately convey what he intuitively needs to.
“I feel like it takes me the same amount of time to do a small one as it does to a large one,” Castillo explains. “Large pieces give me the chance to let go of myself more… they give me a lot of opportunities to get out everything I have.”
The process of working with a large canvas can be very physical, at times affecting even the brush strokes that go onto the canvas. Castillo, there is no one particular way of making a stroke correctly; it is all dependent on the moods and emotions involved.
“You can see a little bit that my strokes aren’t necessarily smooth, and they aren’t necessarily rough,” he comments. “That’s where I unload everything I’m carrying: my stress, my joy, or my madness.”
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Como si fuera un partido de fútbol (As if it Were a Soccer Match), mixed media on canvas, 150cm x 120cm
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Las Fuerzas (The Forces), mixed media on canvas, 150cm x 120cm
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Resonanica 150 (Resonance 150), mixed media on canvas, 150cm x 120cm
Such madness is especially present in the mixed media piece, Resonancia 150 (Resonance 150), which contains what Castillo jokes are “todos los groseros del mundo” or “all of the curse words in the world.” With letters strewn among somewhat demonic figures and a relatively muddy color palette, I scout through Resonancia 150 as if I were embarking on a bizarre word search through the sludge.
Along the way, I get to enter into the surreal meanderings of Castillo’s subconscious, which on the particular day of the painting, was just angry: so angry it somehow spat out an unsavory universe of curse words like “puta,” “culo,” “no vale verga,” “pimp,” and plenty of other much deeper cuts. Resonancia 150 is especially entertaining given the large quantity of slang in Mexican culture and its many words which often hold “doble sentido“, or double meanings that only would make sense if you were well-versed in the culture. It is crude, yet somehow really funny.
More importantly, though, the piece captures the brilliance found in many of Castillo’s pieces: his ability to take a boundless amount of energy and put it into his art. Add that to the fact that he is also a fountain of ideas, a bearer of technical prowess, and a creative with an ability to figure out how to bend any artistic medium into his universe — and you have a winning recipe.
It’s only been a relatively short period of time that Amecas has dedicated himself to art in a more formal sense. Whether the ideas or emotions pour out into tufted rug pieces, hand-sewn dolls that reflect characters from his imagination, photographic portraits of diverse communities and traditions throughout México, or found objects that he assembles, paints, or adorns, Castillo’s nonstop practice of creating and his commitment to craft are demanding our attention.
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