Castellon, Richell

Cuban-born Impressionist Artist based in the United States, Richell Castellón Ferreira took his first steps referring to art from an early age. Completing his Art education, he spent four years of effort and dedication which enabled him to overcome and achieve the bases of what would be the beginning of his career as an artist.

In 2004 he graduated with satisfactory results and won several awards for being a well-integrated student of Fine Arts and Best Student in four years. Then he continued his studies and got his degree as “Instructor of Art” without losing the link with the artistic endeavor by which he continued to participate in collective and personal exhibitions that provided his artistic recognition in Cuba, Spain and Denmark.

Today, established in the United States, he continues his career in recognition of his knowledge in each one of his works. It has it made it possible for his work to be published in The Good Life Central New York Magazine 2020, Lake Affect Magazine 2023 and City Journal 2024.

His style is loose, improvisatory in feel, but there is a strong sense of place in each of his paintings — be it a scene from Cuba or from Syracuse, New York. While each scene represents a moment in time, Castellon fills them with an energy and spontaneity that also reflects an acute sense of observation. All of the paintings exude a powerful sensitivity to the light or movement within a scene. Sometimes he offers us an unresolved narrative, and sometimes it’s simply about a naturally occurring play of lines, shapes and patterns within an urban landscape. But there’s always an infusion of light and movement be it within a fully rendered color palette or within restrained tones of gray, black and white. “I try to capture the emotion of the scene,” Castellon says. “I want people to hear the painting. The details aren’t important. It’s the overall effect.”

Almost nine years have passed since Castellon moved from the only country he had ever known to the unfamiliar landscape of Upstate New York. In that time, he has steadfastly figured out how to rebuild a life, one that supports his innate passion to paint and to be the artist he knows he is capable of becoming.