Mary Martin Gallery

Artist’s Statement

My artwork is about what people believe and the stories that support those beliefs.  It follows then, that I am interested in religions, popular and media culture, literature, the sciences, especially psychology, and art history.  From these many sources, I derive stories that I paint in the form of Pop fairy tales.  I find that many of the forms I employ are based on archetypal shapes, and the stories that spring from them are “old” familiar ones that are basic to many cultures.  These personal discoveries come about from my own experience and memory.  These small realizations are related to phases of growth in my artistic development.

My paintings have taken the aspects of fantasy, magical realism, and surrealism.  It is realistic and “illustrative.”  Forms and figures, usually with some cultural reference or basis, carry a “message” or “story.”  Typically, I use a central figure to carry the weight of the painting, and then surround it with a multitude of smaller figures that serve as a supporting cast, similar to the main theme and supporting arguments of an essay.  One of my first series used the image of an Elizabethan or Spanish queen, which in various cultures resonates with the archetype of the Great Mother, the Goddess, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and, generally, the feminine aspect of humanness.  In prehistory, we find that spiritual beliefs and ideas originated from the Earth-as-Mother concept-complex leading to myths and rituals, cultic, religious, and otherwise; in short, the Earth—Nature—itself  as the creator and sustainer of life.  Simplistically speaking, these beliefs and stories formed the psychological, mental, and emotional infrastructure for many of our modern religions and cultural beliefs.  Along the way, the cultural artifacts and daily objects, some of which were later subsumed into the concepts of Art, represented the stages of growth and evolution of human societies and cultures in visual, tactile, auditory, and other experiential forms.

As I developed as an artist, I learned to trust my responses to the many influences around me, historical and contemporary. As an American Mexican, I embody the confluence and clash of two cultural heritages.  As an avid reader and philosopher (one who loves knowledge), I absorbed the many forms of Art, popular culture, and the histories of these societies.  Necessarily, as I wanted to learn more, I expanded my horizons by including the myths, tales, and stories of other cultures.  Like the internet, my mind is a browsing program that touches upon the numerous stories, ideas, songs, poems, paintings I can remember, and, when I feel limited, I actually use the internet to research and learn more about the world.  This, in turn, inspires my painting and continued interest.

This attitude and reliance on the intuitive approach have resulted in various series of paintings that are based on popular rock ‘n roll songs, TV and movies, comics, and characters and ideas from literature.  Painting still carries the “old magic”, becoming new again with a contemporary consciousness.

Santiago Perez

2010 One Man Show at Mary Martin Gallery in Charleston, SC

Artist Biography of Santiago Perez

Santiago Perez lives near the small community of Tijeras, New Mexico. Born in San Antonio, Texas in 1950, he grew up in many small towns around the south Texas area, mostly on farms and ranches his father worked. 

Encouraged by his family and an artist uncle, Santiago learned to draw early, copying the antics of 1950’s TV cartoon characters by Hanna Barbera, Disney, Loony Tunes, Popeye, and the Sunday Comics.  Farm animals were nearby subjects, especially horses. Old quarterhorse journals, hunting/wildlife magazines, and storybooks of Old West heroes (Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickock, etc.) were early sources for his imagination.  Artists such as Charles M. Russell, Frederic Remington, and Will James were early models.  Will James’ Smoky, the Cowhorse was his bible for horses in bucking and other action scenes.

Santiago was an elementary school teacher in San Antonio for a short time. He served 24 years in the Air Force, stationed in Texas, Florida, Germany, Colorado and New Mexico. In West Berlin he visited museums showing classic and contemporary European masters, renewing his desire to be a painter.  Returning to the U.S., he developed his art and exhibited in Colorado Springs, Pueblo, and Denver, Colorado.

In Colorado, Santiago focused on landscape and western painting.  Learning from the Impressionists led him to study American and other European landscapists, and from there, he went on to other artists, subjects, styles, and techniques.  An avid student of art history, Santiago includes many forms of creative expression, including painting on metal, cutout painted-forms, and found object/assemblage, and installation.  In the past few years, Santiago has concentrated on fantastic and comical works in his latest exhibits.