Bio

Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo (b. 1978, El Salvador) immigrated to Canada at age 11.  He is a graduate of The Ontario College of Art and Design (2001) and obtained his MFA degree at Concordia University in 2008. He has exhibited extensively across Canada and internationally in venues such as The International Print Centre in New York, The Southern Alberta Art Gallery, MAI (Montréal Arts interculturels), The Mexic-Arte museum in Austin, Texas, MARTE- Museo de Arte Moderno in EL Salvador and La Halle Saint Pierre in Paris among others.

He is the recipient of The Artist Studio Award Program by the City of Vancouver (2015-2018), including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2010) and numerous others from The Canada Arts Council.  He was shortlisted for the Pierre- Ayot Prize in 2009 for an emerging artist by the City of Montréal. In 2011 Castillo was the winner of the Victor-Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award for a mid-career artist in visual arts in Canada. He has participated in international residency programs at Headlands Center for the Arts, USA. Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, California; Proyecto 'ACE in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and The Santa Fe Art Institute (Immigration & Emigration residency in 2016, and Truth & Reconciliation residency in 2019), New Mexico. USA.

A former resident of Montréal, he now lives and works in the ancestral unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, known as Vancouver, Canada.