Antonio Santín

Antonio Santín (b. 1978, Madrid, Spain) lives and works in Madrid, Spain. Santín’s ornamental rug paintings are labor intensive, taking many months to complete. The technique of using realistic imagery to create optical illusions of depth dates back the work of Zeuxis (b. 464 BCE). We can reference the epic story of the birds that pecked at the painted grapes in a Zeuxis mural painting, as they looked so realistic. In Santín’s case, the renderings are of tapestries with shadows and forms creating realistic surfaces with the use of ancient techniques. To be clear, his approach is grounded in the traditional Spanish style of tenebrism and the Italian chiaroscuro. These techniques use extreme contrasts of light and dark to heighten surfaces and imagery to dramatic effect. Santín describes his work as “more real than reality itself.” With this statement Santín takes it further by squarely placing the work in the combined techniques of tenebrism, chiaroscuro, and trompe l’oeil, the no-tech version of what is today virtual, immersive reality.

Santín earned his Fine Arts degree from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and studied Anotati Scholi Kalon Technon at the Athens Fine Arts School. Santín recently exhibited Monomanias at the Sharjah Art Museum in his second one-person exhibition at the institution. The installation comprises a series of 12 small-format paintings, titled for their muted palette. Additional museum exhibitions include the Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn, NY; Hudson Valley Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; the Ithra Museum, Saudi Arabia; the Farjam Foundation, Dubai, UAE; Kunstraum Bethanien, Berlin, Germany; the Georg Kolbe Museum, Berlin, Germany. He also has work on view at the Knoxville Museum of Art, Tennessee.  In 2021, his work was featured at the Shara Art Festival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. His work is held in numerous museums and private collections internationally.