EXHIBIT ON VIEW SEPTEMBER 12–OCTOBER 3, 2026: Angel Castelán’s “Sanctuary” explores the many forms refuge can take: a relationship, a memory, a place, or a connection to one’s cultural roots. While informed by personal experience, Castelán’s works resist a singular narrative. Quiet acts of care between partners, domestic rituals, and culturally significant places unfold as interconnected fragments, inviting viewers to decide whether they are witnessing a tragedy, a transformation, or enduring love.

OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, September 12, 2026 | 5–7 PM

As a queer Mexican American artist, Castelán draws from personal photographs, memory, and Nahua cosmologies to consider how identity is shaped through both chosen and inherited histories. Locations such as Xochimilco become more than settings; they serve as repositories of memory, ancestry, and belonging, where lived experience and cultural inheritance converge. “Sanctuary” suggests that refuge is not always something that is discovered, but created through intimacy, memory, places, and the stories that are inherited, created, and preserved.

Born and raised in Houston, TX, Angel Castelán is an interdisciplinary artist who works in painting, drawing, and relief printmaking. Castelán earned both, his BFA in Painting with a minor in Art History and his MFA in Painting from the University of Houston. Castelán has shown his work throughout Texas, including the Holocaust Museum Houston, Blaffer Art Museum (Houston), Lawndale Art Center (Houston), and Clamp Light Gallery (San Antonio). He is currently a professor at Houston Community College and Sam Houston State University.