Jordan Castillo knows so much about biology, nature and botany that he could be a scientist. Instead, this artist chooses to explore the human relationship with flora and fauna through his powerful and captivating ceramic works.

It was the year 1984 when the American scientist Edward O. Wilson coined a new concept in sociobiology: &ldquo;biophilia&rdquo;. Defined as &ldquo;the human need to affiliate with other forms of life&rdquo;, Wilson's hypothesis posed that people intrinsically tend to seek connections with nature, since they possess an innate affinity with living things of all kinds.
Beautiful, isn't it? Well, for <a href="https://www.instagram.com/biophilia.estudio/">the artist Jordan Castillo (28),</a> even something as pure as the love of life hides lights and shadows within itself.

Castillo's imaginary is born from him as clearly as unconsciously. Originally from the town of Salamanca, in Coquimbo, he developed a deep relationship with nature from a young age; deep, yes, but not blind. &ldquo;It is known as 'the town of the witches,'&rdquo; he says of the place where he grew up. "People tell things, and you see things."
He fondly remembers his adobe house with untidy walls, the crops that surrounded it and the little frogs that would gather outside his door, as well as the darkness of the <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/travel/3-glamorous-wedding-locations-in-the-italian-countryside" target="_blank" rel="noopener">countryside</a>, the death of livestock and the inexplicable events that times witnessed &ldquo;I remember as a child going for a walk and there being a circle of pure animal skulls. I always grew up with a lot of fear&rdquo;, he recounts between laughs.
It turned out that, as an adult, his interest in biology did not manifest itself through scientific study. Or, at least, not as such. Already living in the capital, Castillo entered the University of Chile to study art, where he learned about the ceramic technique and fell in love with it. &ldquo;It seemed to me an interesting process, unlike <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/art/jean-michel-basquiat-career-history" target="_blank" rel="noopener">painting</a>, where you are seeing the result all the time, or <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/art/a-sculpture-and-a-bracelet-for-tiffany-co-and-daniel-arsham" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sculpture</a>, which seemed very crude to me,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I began to get very involved with ceramic pigments, to study what are the possibilities in which I can paint a piece. My work has a lot of that pictorial side: you can see the register of the stain, the trace of the brush, the dripping on the piece... and at the same time it is volumetric, sculptural. It ended up captivating me."
His works are not consumable, but endure. As he explains, the colour is well integrated into the material thanks to the intensive baking process to which the work is subjected. Over five hours each, Castillo performs four &ldquo;burns&rdquo; in total &ndash;one so that the &ldquo;cake&rdquo; remains; one to fix the colour; another to seal the layer of transparent enamel, which provides shine, and, finally, the last, which provides one of the most recognizable characteristics of its authorship: the iridescent details, in gold or<a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/fashion/silver-cowboy-boots-to-shop-now" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> silver</a>.

<h2 style="text-align: justify;">The brittle point</h2> As is to be expected with such an exhaustive trade, when conceptualizing his creations, Castillo leaves nothing to chance. “Biophilia has always been described as the human relationship with nature, which is what I try to talk about,” he says. “But for me it is not a white term. It&#39;s like darkness... it&#39;s a relationship that sometimes isn&#39;t kind. It is at the limit of what can be good or bad”. JORDAN CASTILLO: This thing of wanting to have nature inside terrariums, aquariums, in nurseries inside your house… wanting to have nature inside. There is a way of seeing biophilia superconnected with nature, with the garden... L&#39;OFFICIEL: Super romanticized. JC: Yes, but not necessarily. There is a side that has nothing to do with harmonizing with the human being. Biophilia for me is also wanting to be a bit of a predator of nature , and currently it is being super attacked. Deforestation, fires, trawling, water acidification... I have always been interested in that subject, the point of fragility.

And it is that, in one way or another, literally or implicitly, that is the subtext of each of his works. His favorite piece, for example, is the frog from the Spontaneous Generation collection , for which he was inspired by the disproven theory that creatures suddenly emerge, alive and complete, perfect. &quot;In the countryside you see many animals that are born with two heads and live very little,&quot; says Castillo. “[With this collection] I wanted to show that different side of biophilia, to lose the innocence and idealization of nature. It is not as white, clean or pretty. There is death, darkness. I like the beauty of what is born hybrid”. In his Apparente trópico collection, the ceramist based himself on the first impressions that the European colonizers had when they encountered the particular tropical flora of Latin America. Amazed by their unknown beauty, they wanted to take these plants back to their continent with lanterns and glass structures, but they always arrived dead, since they were not capable of recreating their conditions. Castillo&#39;s pieces are black and shiny, with a funereal vitality that manages to convey and even empathize with the condemned obsession of those colonizers.

His attraction to these subjects is insatiable and voracious. After commenting on a paper that one of his followers shared with him on social networks about ocean acidification &ndash; the point that most interests him is the fact that pollution affects the pH of the water and makes oyster shells be thinner&ndash;, Castillo jumps towards another element, fire.
JC: With the fires, everything between Valpara&iacute;so and Vi&ntilde;a burned. There were plenty of important native palm trees. And the images are super interesting, because they're all black, but just now some green shoots are coming out... like they're growing from those ashes. That's why I modelled the pieces I made [for Apparente tr&oacute;pico] from living plants, not dead ones, because it's something that might sprout again.
L'OFFICIEL: You leave nothing to chance.
JC: The ceramic process is so slow that I start to think a lot [laughs]. I'm all the time with the piece, it takes me months to model. And I do several pieces, I don't let go of the work. I don't make a sculpture and say &ldquo;yeah, this is it&rdquo;. For me things come to a close if there are several characters that are putting together this stage and this play. I think it's very difficult to make a play with only one piece, but there has to be more on stage. I love that.

<h2>Layered society</h2>
Although in short gestation, Biophilia is already bearing fruit. With his first solo exhibition at the Galer&iacute;a Animal de Santiago and the celebration of the Fungi Festival with the Museo del Hongo &ndash;an organization that commissioned pieces for the occasion&ndash; in April, Castillo is getting ready for Berlin and the first international leap of his career. after being invited to present his work at the Kastanien gallery during May.
But this potter does not lose sight of his final purpose: beyond the concept, to reach the viewer. &ldquo;I want it to be striking for all kinds of audiences, who are not necessarily a scientist or an artist to understand the work. Or it may be that he doesn't understand anything, but it produces things for him, or it seems to him that the job is well done&rdquo;.
Within the subtlety that predominates in his messages, he confesses that he feels more and more free to talk about what he wants. "That's why I like the burning thing," he smiles. &ldquo;We are a society that works by layers, by appearances. Everything is covered in enamels. My process is to cover the clay many times until it is no longer visible, it remains below, while above there is a layer of gold and silver&rdquo;.
And he concludes: &ldquo;It is very contemporary how we cover the earth &ndash;the origin&ndash; with these enamels, colours, shine&hellip;&rdquo;.

fragile nature

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