↑ This image was definitely made by Castore, but is it also a selfportret? Some claim that it's one of her assistants who's pictured here.

↑ It's asserted that this is a more recent and more clear image of Castore, though historians refute this by saying that in that case, she must be very closely related to Lodewijk van Gruuthuse.

↑ Signed, Castore

↑ Some years ago, Castore's logo became famous in Foggia (IT) when an apparently big fan decided to spread it all over the city centre. A lot of publicity, but also a lot of vandalism, the judge ruled. Fortunately, Castore could prove that she had nothing to do with it.

Frankly, we know nothing about Agnes Castore, except her name and the fact that she's a photographer, writer, painter, ... In short: an artist, fluctuating between profundity and lightness, between a tad of seriousness and total absurdity.

Castore is a well-known, but above all a mysterious name in art and author circles. During the past years, she has already won some important prizes: the Premio di Lodrini per il miglior giovane artista (IT, 2010), the Prix ​​du Pinceau pour le concept le plus marrant (BE, 2014), the Erbach Roßberg Autor Auszeichnung (DE, 2016) and the Henrik T. Wilson International Photography Award (US, 2018). Castore was always represented by one of her fellow artists to receive these prizes. It may be clear: she prefers anonymity, in order to be able to create without any constraints.

That's all we know for sure. All the rest is a blur, an absolute blur and the many studies on the identity of Castore only made the blur more murky. In 2016 Prof. Dr. Lena Höffweiser and Dr. Torsten Rausser of the faculty of literature of the Freie Universität Sutthausen concluded in their study to the origins of Castore (set up in the context of the Erbach Roßberg Autor Auszeichnung) that "It's really remarkable and impressive that in these times, when most information is readily available on the internet, an artist like Castore can remain so well surrounded by indistinctness. Despite our study, Castore's origins remain for most part vague to us and we believe that she's very pleased with this outcome."

Based on inter alia the above-mentioned study, we can however formulate the following assumptions about Castore's background:

She must have been born in the second half of the eighties, because the Premio di Lodrini per il miglior giovane artista can only be awarded to artists younger than 25. Various sources mention 3 March 1988 as date of birth, but this has never been confirmed and intimates believe that she must have been born later, because "she looks way younger". Of course that's just an subjective impression and not a fact.

There's a high degree of unanimity among art and literature experts that Castore was born in Belgium, but we can only guess at the exact place of birth. One of her parents (Höffweiser and Rausser assume Castore's mother) is Italian, the other is Belgian.

We know that (a part of) Castore's management is located in Belgium, but it's very unlikely that Castore herself also works from there. It's rumoured that her studio is located in the Black Forest region (DE).

Does the fact that Castore mostly writes in Dutch say something about her background? You would think that we can conclude that Dutch is her native language. However, connoisseurs of Castore's work point to the fact that she has also written (less known) work in Italian, inter alia, and state that the fact that she mostly writes in Dutch rather means that this is the language she wants to practice the most and therefore, can't be her native language. By the way, in 2014 a man from Freiburg (DE) claimed that he used to be Castore's neighbour and that he had an audio recording of her speaking fluently French to the chickens in her garden. Unfortunately, none of her fellow artists wanted to confirm that it was indeed her voice. They're very loyal to Castore and obviously don't want to undermine her anonymity.

So, we can definitely conclude that the blur prevails, but fortunately for us, artlovers, Castore has gathered a group of confidants around her. They're even more careful about Castore's identity than the artist herself, but they're very approachable as far as it concerns her work. They've been very helpful to us in publishing an overview of Castore's oeuvre in the MAM Journal in 2018 and they will certainly also be willing to help you. Feel free to contact them.