Part Two: The Ink Darkscapes of Pedro De Kastro

Greetings, today we have Part Two of a Three Part series interview with Portuguese Ink Artist Pedro De Kastro. In his relentless pursuit of detail, De Kastro wields pencil, China ink, and metal engraving like instruments of alchemy, transmuting light and shadow into haunting, hyper-detailed visions. Below is our conversation with the Artist.

DA&C: The transformation of an artist is often a story of layers, shedding and becoming. How would you describe your personal evolution into the artist you are today? Has the change in location from South America to Europe impacted your creation? 

You bet that an Artist's transformation is often a story of layers, shedding and becoming. I was already suffocating in Europe and making too many mistakes in Lisbon. I needed to make a drastic change in my life. I needed to be born again. Since I was a child, I've been dreaming of a fantastic city merged in the far future. New York City is that setting par excellence and I have always been fascinated by the aesthetics and imagery of its skyscrapers, spires, bridges and avenues, even if I've never been there. But at the same time I was amazed by the mythical and mysterious continent beyond the horizon, South America. It was also the adventure of the unknown, diving headfirst into a giant Third World city. 

The Artist above São Paulo, Brazil, 2008

In December 2001, at my 30 recently done, I left the Old World for good, towards Brazil. Fate plays tricks and it was there, after crossing the Atlantic and the Equator, that I first encountered the concept of the Megalopolis. Close to the Tropic of Capricorn, there it was waiting for me: the overwhelming São Paulo. When I arrived in the biggest megalopolis of the South Hemisphere, coming from a small European capital, I felt like a stranger in a strange land. São Paulo has become my tropical New York but I must add that before embracing São Paulo and its massive jungle of monoliths made of concrete, I spent a month in the federal capital of Brasília, whose unique architecture by Oscar Niemeyer and Lúcio Costa, the creator of the unique master plan for Brazil's new capital, blew my mind away. I explored the satellite towns of Brasilia, where I first came into contact with Brazil's extreme social inequality (Brazil, despite being one of the largest economies in the world, has extreme economic inequality that generates conflict, violence, and instability. The six richest men in Brazil have the same wealth as the poorest 50% of the population; about 100 million people. The richest 5% in the country have the same income as the remaining 95%). I went to São Paulo for a new life, a new horizon and a new sun. I didn’t know anything about the art market around there. Everyone there kept asking me why, being an European, I left Europe and the First World, where the main art centers are so near from Lisbon, like Paris, London or Berlin. I answered the Brazilians that I only needed new oxygen and a new adventure in their tropical world. 

The Artist in São-Paulo, Brazil, 2005

To survive as an emigrant artist in São Paulo, where I lived from 2002 to 2018 - 16 years deeply merged in that insane continent - I had to create and to draw several pen and ink works of illustration for magazines and newspapers as well as to advertising agencies. I wish I could only and always create my apocalyptic Dark Dawns then. In between illustration commissions, I would make my darkscapes/dreamscapes, but I also spent long, hard periods without work. I also often went to the terraces of the skyscrapers to see São Paulo from above, the myriad of buildings and towers all the way to the horizon, just to take my mind off the reality far below. At the same time, I was sending images of my art to galleries and art agents in Europe and in the US. I had known for some time that H.R. Giger's agent for decades was Leslie Barany, and I sent him persistently several emails, but with no luck. In the meantime, an English outsider art collector and gallery owner, Henry Boxer, took an interest in my work and I sent him two originals to London for him to circulate and sell. In 2008, I had my first solo show in São Paulo, and at the same time Henry took my two originals to the outsider Art fair in New York. I heard that he knew Leslie Barany and that he would also be at the Outsider Art Fair, so I asked him if he could give my originals to Leslie. Henry was very kind and generous, he gave Les the two originals and I finally got his attention. I sent another original to Les and he arranged for me to take part in some group exhibitions at Paul Booth's Last Rites Gallery. At the same time, through the Society for Art and Imagination, I took part in several other group shows in Europe and the US.

HELLSPIRES, 2006 - Pedro De Kastro Prints available on Dark Art & Craft 

HELLSPIRES, 2006 - Pedro De Kastro Framed Prints available on Dark Art & Craft 

In 2011, with my artistic life finally getting on track, my art being recognized and only two weeks after my biggest solo show in São Paulo, at Brazilian Museum of Sculpture and Ecology (MuBE), I suffered an almost fatal injury in my right eye - this one was a close call - almost losing my ability to see, which would be a game over to my work, and therefore to my life. The thin bone close at the bottom of my right eye socket, right next to my eye, was brutally shaken, but not broken, by the insane impact of the end of a stick. I gained a trauma-induced cataract in my natural crystalline lens. Through a delicate surgery, my natural crystalline was disintegrated and I received as a gift instead of this, a synthetic intraocular lens. This work process and the medical intervention that ensued was even documented in a short 13-minute film - Memories From The End Of Times - which won Best Documentary Short Film in 2015 (Berlin International Awards). If I had lost my right eye - and I really do need both eyes to have the sense of depth, perspective, balance and refinement of details - I would have lost my art forever and could never go back to drawing my Horizons. And I, without being able to draw my Horizons, would lose the will to live. It was no longer enough for me to plunge/merge in the insane task of creating/producing my new darkscapes, obsessed with maintaining the quality of line and detail, and always accompanied by my distressing ADHD, that I got my right eye blasted for Life. But I didn't lose it, my vision as well as my lines remained straight and the show must go on. Two weeks later I was drawing again, with new glasses and magnifying lenses on my forehead. I became even more obsessed with the perfection and minuteness of the pen and ink details in my dark compositions. Your glass of water is always half full. Never half empty.

Born Again - São Paulo, Brazil, Mayday 2011

Lembranças Do Fim Dos Tempos aka Memories From The End Of Times
Brazil, 2015, 14’, Color. Director / Editor / Script: Rafael Câmara. Production: Ciotat Andaluz. Co-production: After Dark, Protótipo Filme With: Pedro de Kastro Country: Brazil. Language: Portuguese

"My vision as well as my lines remained straight and the show must go on. Two weeks later I was drawing again, with new glasses and magnifying lenses on my forehead. I became even more obsessed with the perfection and minuteness of the pen and ink details in my dark compositions."

HELLSPIRES, 2006 - 2025, WELCOME TO NUKE YORK

HELLSPIRES print by Pedro De Kastro available on Dark Art & Craft 

However, over the next few years, my dissatisfaction and restlessness grew, and I became more and more involved in the dark side, due to my eye trauma together with the endings of the unknown's mystery and the taste of adventure of the first years in Brazil. I would go to São Paulo's art show openings in the richest neighborhoods' fancy galleries, as well as to the hellholes of its underworld, where I would go to slums - favelas - and meet their human wild fauna besides their drug dealers (they were fascinated to meet a Caucasian European there in their world and I, vice versa). In the dark dawn, I would go into several cursed places, like dark alleys or the nightmarish Crackland and immerse myself within its dreadful army of 1.000 zombies, to have extreme socio-anthropological experiences, and just to see the Misery and feel the Darkness. I plunged deeper and deeper into alcohol and South American venoms, stupid boozed bar fights, narrow escapes from prison or death by a hair breadth, and found myself at the gates of Hell. I was walking the razor's edge. When you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you (Nietzsche). My productivity dropped a lot and it was a long journey before I finished a new darkscape. I had to do something. In 2016, I returned to Portugal, after 14 years, 4 months and 19 days without putting my feet in Old Europe, to see my Parents and how my hometown was. It was a real space-time shock. I was supposed to stay in Lisbon for 1 month, but I stayed for 5. Then I had to go back to the lion's den to cure myself alone there and come back for good, with all my originals and stuff that were still in São Paulo. 

The Artist; Pedro De Kastro, Carmen Giger, Paul Rumsey and Leslie Barany at Museum HR Giger, 2018

THE AVENUE II, 2007  Dark Art & Craft Prints

Back to Europe for good, after 16 Years in Brazil - Solo Show at Museum HR Giger, 2018 - 2019