Literature and painting have been intimately intertwined in Castillo's work since the beginning of his career. In literature he has found an endless source of themes and ideas to explore in his paintings. Julio Cortazar's  short stories and novels are one of the most original and puzzling literary offerings of the twentieth century. Cortazar was part of the Latin American Boom in the second part of the century and remains, along with Borges, Vargas Llosa, Garcia Marquez and many others, as a pillar of contemporary Western literature.
Cortazar's stories reveal a world in which reality is presented as a surreal and even absurd medium, where daily things shed their familiarity, unveiling their true deeper and disconcerting nature. In one of these stories, a man encounters death after a violent episode with his sweater. In another, the protagonist vomits little bunnies which he then takes care of, giving meaning to his existence.
This collection of paintings is also an examination of reality, an attempt to look beyond the palpable and find a hidden world of symbols and meaning.

Pastor Castillo was basically forced to leave his country after severe confrontations with the Cuban regime. This collection is an ode to the immigrant, a melancholic and heart-wrenching vision of what is like to live in a perpetual state of longing and  strangeness. A bright palette alternates with extremely distorted and sad seascapes, expressing the complex dichotomy of living in freedom but not with happiness.

These works show the influence of American Abstract Expressionists on Castillo's work. It is very interesting to see how the artist manages to combine the highly intellectual essence of the American movement with his own personal elements.

Pastor Castillo has extensively studied the iconography of several ancient civilizations in order to apply their visual languages in his own work. From the Aztecs to the Toltec, this collection evidences the strong interest of the artist in Mesoamerican cultures and how their imagery can become an effective vehicle to make valid comments about our current time.

Biomorphic shapes populate these canvases in a surreal journey which reminds us of the work of sculptors Jan Arp and Henry Moore. These are enigmatic works, full of ambiguity and multiple meanings, in which final interpretation rests completely on the viewer.

In this series the artist has employed visual languages from different ancient world civilizations and combine them to create new iconographies and graphic systems. Ranging from Pre-Columbian to Mesopotamian cultures, the artists attempts to give a general sense of our ancestors vision of the world and reality.

Take a look at the most recent abstract work by the artist.