About the Artist

Artist Ana del Castillo grew up in Chile under the influence of her uncle who was an oil painter. As a child, she spent hours immersed in her uncle’s art books, watching him work, and visiting galleries and art studios with him. Her mother was also an artist and taught her how to draw and not be constrained by real shapes, forms and colors.

Becoming an artist was not something she considered as a way to make a living, her interests lied in dance. She worked as a ballet dancer on stage and television from an early age until her body dictated the need for another profession. It is not an accident that her favorite painting subjects are dancers, and the magical colors of the stage infuse many of her paintings.

Ana started oil painting in her fifties when a work colleague invited her to an art class. There she learned the basics while painting - her favorite way to grasp any new skill, by doing. She discovered that painting realistic images came naturally to her, she was captivated by the possibilities, and surprised by what she was able to capture on a canvas without any formal training.

Her paintings start with a vision, an impulse to paint driven by an overwhelming feeling of beauty about something or someone, and she doesn't rest until she is able to seize what she saw in her mind's eye. Each painting is an act of love.