JOSÉ SANTOS III

Santos’ early paintings consisted of collages and appropriated images from Western artworks, which he juxtaposed to create unexpected compositions. In the late 1980's, he started building a strong cryptic iconography, producing a series of figurative works for several solo and group shows in the Philippines and abroad. His 2009 exhibition (Un) Common saw Santos making a marked departure from figurative painting: the series explored how it is not artistic prerogative alone, but also the natural processes of the creative act, that fulfill the inner demand for a body of work. His deliberate choice of subjects deal with a fascination with texture, and the selected objects, ones mined from the artist’s own immediate environs, show evidence of wear, tear and manipulation, each reflecting a peculiar history and scars bearing witness to it. In recent works, Santos continues his explorations of mundane objects, not merely to uncover their histories, but to complicate our perception and understanding of these everyday things.

In 2000, Santos was chosen as one of the Thirteen Artists Awardees by the Cultural Center of the Philippines. His works have been exhibited in Denmark, Malaysia, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangladesh and New York.