hans de castellane

by patricia angelle

"I never thought I'd paint," says 31-year-old Hans de Castellane. As a teenager in 1995, de Castellane chose an entirely different course of study when he entered New York's Pratt Institute as a commercial design student. He says he expected his degree would end up tied to an office job where he would have to wear a tie. He admits now that his detour to painting after college was probably just a matter of time. "Painting," he says, "is much more hands-on than looking at a monitor and clicking a mouse."

Since then, de Castellane's career has taken some interesting twists and turns. After graduating from Pratt in 1999, his first artistic commission was a mural, a chance request from a customer whose Orleans house he was painting. In the years since, de Castellane has completed more than 130 commercial and privately commissioned murals, vibrant swaths of color and iconic Cape Cod images that decorate area restaurants, shops, country clubs, and private residences. Two of his murals were featured last year in episodes of ABC's Extreme Home Makeover.

One of his murals, covering several walls and the ceiling of a boy's bedroom in a Chatham summer home, features a sailboat race. Shelves resembling half-hulls of boats are built right into the walls, creating an unusual effect. For another Chatham homeowner and avid golfer, de Castellane painted the walls and ceiling of the basement with a waterside putting green. De Castellane's murals move and flow, his vibrant colors and somewhat off-kilter images shifting in and out like the images in a child's kaleidoscope. Speaking of children, de Castellane shares his mural-painting expertise with area schoolchildren through the Cape's ARTSLink, a nonprofit arts foundation.

In his quirky, slightly cartoonish style, de Castellane also paints landscapes that hop off the walls in galleries like Chatham's Wynne/Falconer, where a 2008 show of de Castellane's paintings was a big hit. In the painting Days' Cottages, the artist gives a different take on the well-known North Truro landmark, twisting and turning the summer cottages across the canvas. The beach cottages bound forward and back along a rolling landscape, beneath a blazing orange sky. There is a transient here-today-gone-tomorrow feel to all of de Castellane's works--a sense that what you see now could look very different if you wait a day.

De Castellane says he has a deep passion for Formula One cars and go-kart racing, not surprising for an artist whose paintings never seem to stop moving. He says he feels fulfilled when car racing, when colors and shapes splash by him at warp speed. It isn't difficult to imagine how the world blurring by could translate into his vivid compositions.

Not one to sit still, de Castellane says he wants to do a series of Formula One paintings. He says he will be flying to England this June to see a Formula One race. In the meantime, he is enjoying a multifaceted artistic career, relishing his escape from the all too predictable click-and-drag life of a graphic designer.

Hans de Castellane's paintings can be seen at the Wynne/Falconer Gallery, 492 Main Street, Chatham, 508-945-2867, www.wynne-falconergallery.com. For mural commissions, contact the artist at Hans@hansmurals.com.

Patricia Angelle is a freelance writer and former editorial intern at Cape Cod Life Publications.