Casa de Casta

Casa de Casta
Mixed Media Series. (2016 – 2017)

I began Casa de Casta because of my desire to know more about my own blood, and the histories & political systems that have defined what my blood means.

A few years ago, I learned about a lineage of painting called Casta that belongs to an 18th-century Spanish-colonial tradition. Casta paintings were often produced in 16-panel collections created to catalog and display Spanish classifications of racial mixture in Spanish-colonized lands – that is, various mixed-raced couplings within the Spanish-colonial social order – and codify this system of classifications into distinct categories (ex. mestizo, mulatto, cholo, etc.) that ultimately evidenced, legitimized, and upheld racial supremacy and dominance of “pure-blood” Spanish colonizers in the Américas. Casta paintings narrativized colonizers ideas about race through images that, on the surface, innocuously represent family, their offspring, and scenes of day-to-day life, but also carried ideas of human “breeding,” much in the way humans think about domesticated animals and chattel.

After learning about Casta, my obsession became, how would I be classified under this violent system of classification?

My current work uses paint-chips: objects that contain both commercial and domestic resonances. As a consumer, when you pick up a paint-chip at the store you think about what is desirable for your home, and how color might transform the spaces that you live in day-to-day:

Can I live with this? Does this go in my home?
Do I want to surround myself with this color?

To further allure the consumer, companies use naming (ex. “Nonchalant White,” “Well-Bred
Brown”) and classification, or collections (ex. “Colonial Revival”), to brand their colors. These creative acts of naming and class(ify)ing are created as a way to sell you, the consumer, not only a color, but also a story about how this shade will transform your domestic environment.

Casa de Casta uses paint-chips, collected from Sherwin-Williams, whose names echo deeply entrenched, racist ideas about color. Through this project, I am looking at the politics of color and desirability within home aesthetics, particularly through a selection process based on the question, what colors do we wish live with?

Work List:

Casta 1 (2016) Paint Chips, Artist’s Blood. Artist’s Blood. 15” x11” (Personal Collection of Xo.E.Ling)
Well-Bred Nonchalant (2016) Paint Chips, Artist’s Blood. 5” x 7”
Diverse Accessible Unfussy (2016) Paint Chips, Artist’s Blood. 5”x 7”
Casta 2, Casa Blanca (2016) Paint Chips, Artist’s Blood. 14” x18”
Casta 3, Progeny (2016) Paint Chips, Artist’s Blood. 11” x15”
Casta 4, Olde World Gold (2016) Paint Chips, Artist’s Blood. 12” x12”
Catalog (2016) Paint Chips, Artist’s Blood. 10” x 25”
Casta 5, who believe they are white (2016) Paint Chips, Artist’s Blood. 11” x15”
Casta 6, Interior (2017) Artist’s Blood. 11” x15”
Bounty (Less Brown House) (2017) Paint Chips, Artist’s Blood, Paper Towel. 15” x 11”
Façade 1 (2017) Paint (Nearly Brown, White Core), Wood. 2.5′ x 6′