Shaina Kasztelan is a multidisciplinary artist based in Detroit, Michigan. She was raised in a midwest suburb surrounded by rows of identical houses, ever-changing strip malls, and endless fast-food franchises, all of which have influenced the materials and formal signifiers used in her work. Operating between painting, sculpture, collage, and installation, Kasztelan creates psychedelic dreamscapes using kitsch commodities that shuffle between curated control and chaotic mess. Through humorous juxtapositions, her work criticizes the pleasure and disgust many of us feel simultaneously due to the excessive consumption of manufactured goods and media prevalent under late capitalism.
Kasztelan received a BFA from the College for Creative Studies in 2012 and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2024. In addition to her formal education, the artist has worked as a muralist, built theater sets, worked as a prop maker, and spent years building floats for America’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Her work has been exhibited in many places including The Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, MI), the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (Detroit, MI), and the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities (Ann Arbor, MI). Notable murals include those painted for the NXNE Music Festival (Toronto, ON), Facultad de Artes y Diseño UNAM (Mexico City, MX), and as an assistant for the Glass City River Wall (Toledo, OH) which is currently the largest mural in the United States.