Naia del Castillo (Bilbao, 1975) combines her artistic practice with teaching at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU. She is a member of the research group laSIA, El lugar del sujeto en la investigación artística basada en la práctica. She has a degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Basque Country in the specialty of sculpture (1998), a Master with honors from Chelsea College of Art & Design in London (2000) and a doctorate Cum Laude from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU (2021).
Since 2000, her artistic practice has been articulating sculpture, performative action and photography, motivated by examining spaces of transition structured in a reversible way, in which the agents -body, image, and representation- continuously replace their roles. She seeks to create tensions between the shared representational spaces and the differential of the encounter.
Del Castillo has lived and worked in Bilbao, Rotterdam, London, Barcelona, Paris, Rome, New York, Hong Kong and Madrid, thanks to the help of various scholarships such as: Académie de France à Madrid, Casa de Velázquez (2015), Fundación Arte y Derecho (2011), ISCP, Internacional Studio and Curatorial Program NY (2009), Real Academia de España en Roma (2007), Cité Internationale des Arts en París (2004) or Generación 2000.
She has made numerous individual and collective exhibitions nationally and internationally. Among them stand out: El ejercicio como herramienta (Centro Huarte, Navarra, 2019), Durante, después (Sala Amárica, Gasteiz 2019), Naia del Castillo (Rekalde space, Bilbo 2015), Flujos (Bilbaoarte foundation, Bilbo, 2014), Altered Perceptions (Ilivetomorrow gallery, Hong Kong, 2011), Time After Diamonds (DeSantos Gallery, Houston, 2009), El Reino del Silencio. Escultura española 2000-2010 (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Esteban Vicente, Segovia, 2009), Nuevas Historias. A New View of Spanish Photography and Video Art (traveling exhibition,2008, Museum of Contemporary Art Kulturhuset, Stockholm; National Museum Photography Den Sorte Diamant, Royal Library, Kopenhage; Kuntsi Museum, Finlandia eta Sternesen Museum, Norvegia), Doce Artistas en el Museo del Prado (Museo del Prado, Madrid, 2007), Take me with you (Círculo de BBAA, Madril eta Mori Museum, Japón, 2006), PHotoEspaña04 and PHotoEspaña05, the year in which it won the award for Best Exhibition at the OFF Festival, Parisphoto 05 with the Distrito4 Gallery where she was one of the artists selected to represent Spain, Trampas y Seducciones (Sala Alcala 31, Naia del Castillo (ARTIUM Museum, Vitoria-Gasteiz, 2004)or Fragilities (Festival Printemps de Septembre, Toulouse 2001)
The work of Del Castillo is part of the Museo Nacional del Prado collections; National Museum Reina Sofía Art Center; CA2M, Artium Museum, Santander Museum, Maison Européenne de la Photographie Ville de Paris; o Museum of Fine Arts of Houston; among others.
