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Jure Kastelic escaped to Santiago del Teide, Tenerife, after the lockdown extension in London was announced last December. These works are a selection of small paintings that Kastelic made on the Spanish island, which are part of his ongoing series ‘Future Memories’. These paintings encapsulate Tenerife's sunsets palette, the Calima sandy wind from the island, and Kastelic's new escapism theories as an artist and bitcoiner.

 

Born in Slovenia just after Yugoslavia broke apart, Kastelic was taught the importance of achieving economic stability and independence from a young age. His research is centered around the unsexy side of money like its origin, issuance, governance and the seemingly related rising inequality, declining purchasing power, and the universally fictional trickle-down- economy: “I’m fascinated by how value’s derived from scarcity while observing the parallels of moneyness and painting.”

 

Enhanced by the alluring backdrop of Tenerife, Kastelic's practice reflects his first-hand experience as an artist leveraging Bitcoin and his ongoing research on the impact this new technology has in the new economic reality as a means for escape. Through paintings and works on paper, often accompanied by self-published books and public talks, Kastelic hopes to propagate a basic questioning of the established money system and suggests a working strategy of opting out.

 

Jure Kastelic has had solo exhibitions in galleries and institutions in the UK, Italy, Spain, and Slovenia. He has participated in multiple group exhibitions internationally and is the recipient of several awards in the UK and Slovenia.