Diane Appaix Castro (she/her, @diappaix_art) is a 27 year old French and Spanish sculptor and installation artist who was born in Paris, France and grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts from age four. Her work is strongly informed by her experience as an immigrant living at the intersection of three different cultures. Her works deal with the concepts of existence, humanity, presence - finding new ways to declare how we are in the world and leaving the door for possibilities elsewhere.

✦✦ Bonus post from Diane Appaix-Castro ✦✦

✦ On the experience of bringing a new material into the studio last night ✦

Convergence

It arrives in my life in a cardboard box,

Plastic bins weighing 10 pounds each.

I open one bin and smell the honey and clean.

I pry the sides away from the transparent block and flip it.

A gentle tap releases the block from the bin.

When I remove the bin it’s smooth and clear and bin-shaped.

I cut the block into small, irregular shapes.

They thunder into the pot.

It sloooooooooooooowly melts.

It oozes,

The liquid absorbing the solid.

When it’s like this,

Liquid,

It’s ready to be anything.

It’s a material to be molded, and remolded.

Each time, reincarnated.

Reincarnate is a word that means to become new flesh.

It covers my fingers in its silkiness,

Becoming my flesh for a moment.

It’s warm,

It’s alien,

It’s skin,

It’s me.