Born and raised in Costa Rica, Francisco is also a Canadian citizen. He works in a wide range of styles, creating colorful paintings in acrylic, acrylic and resin, watercolor and mixed media, as well as sculptures in stone, wood, ceramic, fiberglass and bronze. His acrylic and resin paintings are filled with bold color, texture and movement, and his underwater images of whales and other sea life are striking. 

Like French painter Henri Matisse, Francisco believes that an artist should never be a prisoner of a single style.  He continually challenges himself by painting and sculpting in a wide range of media, styles and subjects, and by experimenting with different techniques. Examples of the diversity of his work can be seen on this site, in our art gallery in Liberia, Costa Rica and on his personal website castrolostalo.com.  

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Francisco has a long list of artistic credits, including as organizer of Costa Rica's first international stone sculpture symposiums, and as Canada's representative in the World Youth Forum's 2018 sculpture symposium "Reviving Humanity" in Egypt. His public sculptures can be found there and in Chile as well as Costa Rica. His artwork is also held in private collections in Costa Rica, across Canada and the United States, and in the Caribbean, Argentina, Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland.