Acrylic Paintings

On “Thanksgiving Day” (1992), following the path of pioneer parents, Isabel Castaneda, emigrates from South America (Lima-Peru) to the United States of America (Virginia). At age nineteen, Isabel had to overcome the trials to adapt into a new country. By her early twenties she had already mastered language and cultural barriers.
In fall of 1999, Isabel Castaneda, received an Associate’s Degree in Fine Arts from Northern Virginia Community College in the State of Virginia (Magna Cum Laude), where she studied the arts. In her last year in college she also obtained a First Place Award- Painting for the 1999 Art Student Show. A few years, after college, she won another First Place Award- Painting for the Community Art Show in Manassas, VA. While in college she began painting using acrylics. Her first pieces reflected her cultural background. 

 

In 2007 she entered into the National Christian Art Competition (NCAC) in Versailles, KY, where she received an Honorable mention. In the beginning of 2008, she participated in the Washington DC Metro area Art Contest (Vega Directorio en Espanol) in Fairfax, VA. Also, during the summer of 2008 a couple of her commission drawings were published in the cover of the Alexandria Times, a local newspaper of that city. She has participated in several Art Shows around Virginia and Maryland, for example: Community Art Show at Old Town Fairfax in 2011, Solo Art Show at Cameron Perks Coffeehouse in Alexandria in 2008, Empowered Women International (EWI) Collective Art Show in 2008, Women Story Gallery and Empowered Women International at Fairfax, VA and The Solo Art Show in Honor of the Hispanic Heritage Month at The Andrews Air Force in Maryland in 2013.  

 

An important highlight about one of Isabel’s fine art pieces, “America’s Great Commission”, is that it was selected as the theme image and title for the 2008 Empowered Women International (EWI) graduation/celebration art show. Reid Baron, publisher of The Galleries magazine, a guide to Washington/Baltimore metro area, stated: “America’s Great Commission cleverly shows the integration of the indigenous people of the Americas into the full benefits of the development of the continent which they originally possessed. The Native American wearing the Uncle Sam’s hat and sporting the pendant of the globe enjoys the table set with the goods of Europe: wine and a decorative bowl…”

She has been awarded with two honorable mentions, 
Isabel has this to say about her art: “When I created my first paintings they were people, patterns, and things found in Peruvian culture. That is how my distinctive style emerged. Still my art is inspired by Ancestral Inca culture, but also by a culturally diverse North American experience.”