James Castle

Exhibiting March 7 through March 31, 2007.

Untitled (0490.40), Not dated
found paper, ink, color of unknown origin, string



Untitled (0478.40), Not dated
found paper, soot
5” x 8 3/4”



Untitled (0481.40), Not dated
found paper, soot
4 7/8” x 8 3/4”



Untitled - two sided drawing (0484.40), Not dated
found paper, soot
5 1/4” x 7 1/4”



Untitled (0179.10), Not dated
found paper, string, flour paste, soot
6 1/4” x 2 1/4”



Untitled (0260.30), Not dated
found paper, string, flour paste (28 pages)
3” x 3 3/8”



Untitled - two sided drawing (0341.00), Not dated
found paper, color of unknown origin, soot
4 1/2” x 6”



Untitled (0367.00), Not dated
found paper, string, soot
4” x 8”



Untitled - two sided drawing (0473.40), Not dated
found paper, color of unknown origin, soot
5” x 5”



Untitled - two sided drawing (0475.40), Not dated
found paper, soot
3” x 5 7/8”



Untitled - two sided drawing (0476.40), Not dated
found paper, soot
3” x 5 3/4”



Untitled - two sided drawing (0482.40), Not dated
found paper, soot
7 1/4” x 5 1/4”



Untitled - two sided drawing (0483.40), Not dated
found paper, soot
5 1/4” x 7 1/4”



Untitled - two sided drawing (0485.40), Not dated
found paper, soot
7” x 9 1/4”



Untitled (0487.40), Not dated
found paper, soot, color of unknown origin
7 1/2” x 10 7/8”



Untitled (0488.40), Not dated
found paper, soot, wheat paste
4 2/8” x 1 5/8”



Untitled (0489.40), Not dated
found paper, soot, wheat paste
4 7/8” x 2”



Untitled (0492.40), Not dated
found paper, soot, color of unknown origin, string, wheat paste
13 1/2” x 2 7/8”



Untitled (0497.40), Not dated
found paper, soot, string (36 pages)
8 5/8” x 6 3/4”



Untitled (0498.40), Not dated
found paper, soot, string (44 pages)
9 1/2” x 8 3/8”



Untitled (0517.40), Not dated
found paper, color of unknown origin, soot
3 1/4” x 4 1/2”



Untitled - two sided drawing (0521.40), Not dated
found paper, colored paper of unknown origin, soot
3 1/2” x 4 3/4”



Untitled (0523.40), Not dated
found paper, color of unknown origin
3 1/2” x 6 3/4”



Untitled (0694.00), Not dated
found paper, string, soot (14 pages)
3 1/2” x 3 1/4”



Untitled - two sided drawing(0694.10), Not dated
found paper, soot
6 3/4” x 9 1/4”



Untitled - two sided drawing (0480.40), Not dated
found paper, color of unknown origin
5 1/4” x 7 1/4”



Untitled (0520.40), Not dated
found paper, color of unknown origin, soot
3 1/4” x 4 1/2”



Untitled (0337.20), Not dated
found paper, color of unknown origin, soot
2 1/2” x 4 1/4”



Untitled (0383.40), Not dated
found paper, color of unknown origin
5 1/8” x 5 1/8”



Untitled (0495.40), Not dated
found paper, soot, wheat paste, string (4 pages)
3 1/4” x 5 1/8”



Untitled (0516.40), Not dated
found paper, color of unknown origin
3” x 6 1/2”



Untitled (0529.00), Not dated
found paper, color of unknown origin, soot
3 1/2” x 7”

Touched into Being - James Castle
Art in America
June, 2001
by Stephen Westfall

Born a deaf mute in rural Idaho in 1899, James Castle used drawing in place of language to record and animate the world around him. Two recent exhibitions in New York offered an extensive look at this little-known, self-taught artist, whose work, the author argues, transcends the limitations of so-called Outsider art.

Drawing was James Castle's speech; in the tactile and vernacular sense, his language. Born a deaf mute, Castle (1900-1977) lived out his life on his family's two farms in rural Idaho, first in Garden Valley and then in nearby Treasure Valley. For reasons not fully understood, he refused to learn to read and write. After a misguided effort to suppress his incessant drawing so that he might learn language skills, his parents wisely encouraged his interest in drawing, which he pursued almost obsessively for the rest of his life. His images range in style from a knotty, perspectivally inventive architectural realism to an imaginative or dreamlike representation in which houses and mailbags become living creatures, and further on to diagrammatic and .symbolic grid systems that mimic calendars, comic strips and the notational orderings of inventories. Through his peculiar mediums of homemade inks (made from soot, saliva and, occasionally, ground-up colored paper), string and found papers, Castle undertook a life long project of describing--I would say touching--his world into animate being. Until recently, his drawings were hardly known beyond the world of Outsider art fairs and magazines, and a few regional art museums, but in the past year three shows mounted in New York City have awakened the broader art public to a body of work of extraordinary intensity and nearly unclassifiable beauty.

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