Curtis Santiago

                              11x11 inches Mixed media 2008

This piece started as a very simple collage, but i could not find the purpose or story behind the image. i worked it till i felt i had ruined it, and put it aside in the over worked pile. Almost 2 months later, i decided to put into practice a technique that was still just an idea. I started to layer strips of dried paint over each other to create the effect of moving water, and from there my new style was born. I owe a lot to this piece. it was created at a time when my lover and i had parted ways and i was navigating through the sadness. The musician Bon Iver came out with an album titled "For Emma, Forever Ago" which i found an immediate connection to for many reasons, one being our former lovers shared the same name. The emotion in his music reflected my own, and is now a part of the paintings I created during that time. Immediately i want the observer to see a landscape; sky, mountains, trees, and water. After that little drawings hidden within the painting begin to appear. The sailors braving the rough sea is a direct reference to the end of the my relationship with Emma; us alone on the water deciding whether to sink or swim.