Biography
Laura Castellanos was born in 1963 in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York. Her parents had left Habana, Cuba in exile the previous year. As a child, Laura began drawing and playing music, inspired by the instruction of her musician grandfather, Carlos Menendez. Laura’s mother, Rosa, felt the family would be enriched by the Cuban culture in Miami and moved the family there in 1978. A few years later, Laura received the Marty Colker Scholarship to attend Florida International University’s visual arts program. She then went on to the University of Miami and pursued her graduate degree while studying under Darby Bannard, a student of Hans Hofmann. In 1991, Laura moved to Seattle where she soon received a commission from the Seattle Arts Commission. Since then, her work has been collected by the City of Seattle, King County, and in many corporate collections including Sellen, Nordstrom, and Seibu Corporation whose headquarters are in Tokyo, Japan. Recently, Laura received a purchase award from the Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs.
