Rosemarie Castoro

Rosemarie Castoro was an American artist associated with the New York Minimalists. She worked in drawing, painting, sculpture, and other media. She was associated with Minimalism, Conceptual art, and concrete poetry. Castoro was a practitioner of monochrome painting and abstraction. Movement of the human body through physical space was a recurring theme in her work.

Castoro graduated from Pratt Art Institute in 1963.

In the 1960s, she participated in several performances with Minimal Dance pioneer Yvonne Rainer and became involved with the study of choreography at the Pratt Institute. Castoro graduated from the Pratt Institute, cum laude, with a BFA in 1963. She was involved with the Art Workers Coalition which met in her studio at 151 Spring Street. In the 1970s, Castoro developed a strong focus on sculpture. In 1971, she created a series of giant minimal sculptures called Free Standing Wall Pieces which encouraged performative interaction. The surfaces of the panels are treated with graphite, gesso and marble dust, thickly applied creating massive rough brush strokes. According to a statement made by her gallery representative, "she was acutely aware that women artists working in a formalist style milieu were not spared the gender-based dismissal of the time," even while she remained "strictly dedicated to her non-representational abstract style of work."

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2023