Young Talent V: Keisha Castello

Keisha Castello - Chair (2009), colour photograph

Biography

Keisha Castello was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1978. She was educated at the Edna Manley College and Roehampton University (U.K.). She has exhibited widely in Jamaica and abroad, including Curator’s Eye II (2006) at the NGJ, Infinite Islands (2007) at the Brooklyn Museum and the Global Caribbean Project (2009) in Miami and France. She currently resides in England. Her exhibition in Young Talent V is curated by David Boxer.

Artist’s Statement

I remember being quite good at making things with which I would use as props in my world of imaginative play as a child. I used to be quite in awe of my older brother so anything he would make I would copy to or imitate to the best of my ability. When I was in primary school it was this kind of creative activity that gave me the confidence to come out of my self a little and engage more with my class mates. I would get other students coming up to me wanting to get drawings or science diagrams in their exercise book. I never thought of my life as an artist until late high school days. I grew up in places the Jamaican society termed ghettos and lived with a family of my three siblings and a strict Christian mother and worldly father until I was fourteen. The psychological make-up of these societal institutions impacted me in many ways and much was internalised as a young girl. At first I found solace in the down to earth nature of my high school teachers and the safe containing walls of the art room. I developed an admiration for the creative space that held me together when every other aspect of my academic life and adolescent life in high school made no sense to me. Under the influence of my art teachers I began to feel confident about my life after high school.