Garcia, Santiago

Technique: Acrylic

Santiago Garcia is a Uruguayan artist, born in Montevideo, in 1974. When he grew up in Uruguay, he often explored the fields and countryside near his home and was fascinated by the animals there. . He initially studied biology at college, but at the same time, he painted self-taught and produced a large series of works during his youth. Then, in the mid-1990s, thanks to a scholarship from the University of Uruguay, he was able to study with master printmaker Eduardo Fornasari, master painter Clever Lara and renowned ceramist Susana Pizzurno. In 1998, he obtained a scholarship from the Maldonado Museum of American Art to do a series of painting and drawing studies with the master Miguel Angel Battegazzore. He also worked as an assistant to the Argentinian painter Rogelio Polesello for an exhibition at the same museum in Maldonado, Uruguay. This resulted in murals for the Juvenalia 98 and for subsequent exposure to La Rural del Prado in Montevideo.

“Each of my teachers brought me something unique to work with, whether in sculpture or figurative and abstract painting. This is probably why I developed the skill of working with different aesthetic approaches using several different techniques,” the artist reveals.

In his work, Santiago Garcia explores the fine nuances between abstract art and figurative art. His paintings often incorporate elements that seem contradictory on the surface, but which he manages to skillfully harmonize. Some of his works represent animals in absurd situations where the modern world into which he immerses them creates a shock with their wild nature. In another series, we find Converse sneakers that serve as a metaphor for family and relationships, while reminding us where we have been and where we are going. Still others are entirely abstract paintings with no figurative reference. “I am always interested in the interaction between the figurative and the abstract. Maybe these are two sides of the same coin. The boundary between the two is very subjective and variable. I like to play between these two styles,” the artist tells us.

Santiago Garcia has exhibited extensively in Uruguay, Chile, Mexico, Brazil, Spain and the United States for over 15 years.