The Chiclana Museum is opening the sculpture exhibition ‘El campito de Hera’ to the public

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The Chiclana Museum is opening the sculpture exhibition ‘El campito de Hera’ to the public

Tuesday, May 19, 2026 - 13:39

Julio Castilla is presenting this original and colourful exhibition for the first time; it will remain open until 5 July and comprises some twenty pieces created from recycled materials and with no small amount of ingenuity

The Councillor for Culture, Susana Rivas; the Director of the Chiclana Museum, Jesús Romero; and the artist from San Roque, Julio Castilla, were responsible for opening a new temporary exhibition this Friday at Casa Briones, specifically ‘El campito de Hera’, which will remain open to the public until 5 July. Some time ago – and in his capacity as a guest artist at another artist’s exhibition – we were given a taste, by way of an appetiser, of Julio Castilla’s work. That appetiser whetted our appetite for more, for much more. And here he is again, amongst us, with ‘El campito de Hera’, a clever and playful nod to the mythical Garden of the Hesperides, which, more or less, was located in these parts.

Susana Rivas commented that “on this occasion we are presenting an exhibition that will leave no one indifferent—a colourful and highly appealing sculpture exhibition for everyone in the community. I am convinced that everyone who steps into the gallery will utter an exclamation or show a reaction of surprise the moment they see it. An exhibition whose name is intended to evoke those fields that are linked to our Chiclana, a town where orchards and the rural landscape in general have always been present, always a source of artistic inspiration and one of our most significant hallmarks. That said, seen through the lens of Julio Castilla”.

“In the west, beyond the Pillars of Hercules and according to Greek mythology, lay Hera’s garden,” recalls Julio Castilla, before clarifying what it’s all about: “Taking, in this playful exercise, the licence to imagine that this garden was nothing more than a small field of the sort found in Chiclana de la Frontera, I have recreated elements of fauna, vegetation and details with nods to Greek mythology, to bring them to life within it”, and he does so in the hope of entertaining us. Witty, critical, playful and serious—as serious as children when they play—far from equating seriousness with sadness, Julio Castilla presents this previously unseen body of work at the Chiclana Museum: over twenty sculptures—crafted from recycled materials and no small amount of ingenuity—form the core of an exhibition that is highly original in both form and content, if such a distinction is even possible. These sculptures are presented alongside a series of his own paintings and some hybrid pieces—almost three-dimensional collages—that are not easy to categorise, just as it is not easy to categorise—as a fencing instructor or lyric baritone, let alone a visual artist—the creator of these works, a creator who began painting as a child, a passion he has never abandoned, a child who has never quite lost his childlike wonder.