Santiago Picatoste

SANTIAGO PICATOSTE (Palma de Mallorca, 1971).
"Myth".
Polyvinyl acetate, ink, pigment, acrylic paint and spray on canvas.
Signed and dated on the back.
Certificate of authenticity attached.
Measurements: 195 x 162 cm.

In "Mito", Picatoste resorts to a lulling palette, bursting in delicate waves that create movement. Birds and figurative fragments seem to struggle to subsist within an abstract and dripping environment, with drippings and planes of color. He thus develops a dialogue between the recognizable and entropy. This combination is typical of his style, which draws from the aesthetics of comics, graphic design and lyrical abstraction, always maintaining a balance between chaos and visual harmony. Fragmented shapes, references to nature and pop-inspired graphic elements, such as the face of a cartoon duck, coexist in this colorful composition. His work is part of a contemporary trend that explores the hybridization between popular visual culture and gestural painting, with a language that recalls both the expressionist tradition and digital art and graffiti. Mito, in this sense, is a sample of the way in which Picatoste decomposes reality and recomposes it in a pictorial universe that plays with the viewer's visual memory.

Picatoste's work has always had in mind spontaneity and alchemy in the creative process, emerging from post-pictorial abstraction in connection with figuration. Santiago Picatoste has public sculptures in several cities in Spain. He has participated in ARCO since 2002 and in international fairs such as Art Verona, Art Bologna, SP Arte (Sao Paulo, Brazil), Art Karlsruhe Art Fair (Germany), Pinta and Pulse NY (USA). In 2013 he won the international painting award IBERART, Museo ABC Madrid & The Griffin gallery (London); and the international sculpture award The Gabarron Foundation Sculpture (USA). He has also received scholarships from the Pilar and Joan Miró Foundation and La Casa de Velázquez.