Artist's Statement

"Modern" art has been draped over an artificial framework like the skins of so many slain beasts. Let's see...what does it tell us, this altar: first there was Impressionism, then there was Post-Impressionism, then there was a branching-out: Cubism, Fauvism, Futurism, Expressionism and German Expressionism on to Abstract Expressionism then Pop Art, Conceptual Art, Installation Art, Post-Modern art, etc. Painting's been in there pretty much all the way, giving way at certain times and in certain instances to the particular idiocies of each "school" as it passes through. Noteworthy artists are always ultimately indefinable except on their own terms, evading the pidgeon-holes before getting wedged in. They are judged by their own parameters.  Each has their own unshaking sense of beauty, wherever it may lie, even in nightmares.

I displayed an artistic bent at an early age, a skill which served through childhood, adolescence and early adulthood marked by traumatic experiences inflicted on me by both myself and others. Hiding in art class with a teacher that cared about me (I owe her my life in many ways) got me through high school and it was art that got me out of the town where I was living to Chicago where I studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. My experience there was mainly in drawing and painting with an emphasis on working from the figure. 

I'm working now after a long hiatus. As with school the figure is present in all my work. I rarely work from life but try to express a certain indefinable tension that works itself out in the painting process. I work until I feel like it's done. I do a lot of sketching and get "seed" ideas there which I throw on the canvas and watch grow into whatever comes (although it would be inaccurate to say that the work is entirely unpremeditated); perhaps the eventual appearance of the optical delivery vehicle, but not the image portrayed by that vehicle.

I was all over the map for a while. This is evident in the pieces I've posted so far. The work is taking on a different, more cohesive direction now. I've included a sample of earlier work beginning in 2008 until the present. I'll be posting more soon.
  
Paul Santori

29 March 2010