John Santoro: Perpetual Change

October 6 - November 11, 2018

Opening Reception: Thursday, October 11 from 5 - 8pm

Closing Reception: Friday, November 9 from 6 - 8pm, Artist Talk at 7pm

Perpetual Change is an exhibition of recent “en plein air” and studio landscape paintings by John Santoro. Santoro lives and works in Chicago where he obtained his degree at the University of Chicago.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My source of inspiration is the moment when you appreciate the beautiful simplicity of a single flower wobbling in the breeze, and the purest desire to transfer that very moment and sense of being into my practice in the studio.

I build each of my paintings around a landscape, both familiar settings and foreign territories.  The surrounding environment serves as a point of departure as I embark on creating a painting.  I look for the humorous possibilities that exist in trees, rocks, flowers, and clouds and interpret them through the techniques of the Abstract Expressionists.  I push these natural elements to their tangible extremes, using thickly applied paint to render my impression of the surrounding objects.  The landscapes I have chosen to capture are not necessarily extraordinary, but I endeavor to paint them in an extraordinary way.  I am interested in the lush passages of oil paint, each brushstroke as evidence of an energetic spontaneity, balanced with depicting an image.

For the first time since 2006 Perpetual Change will bring together both aspects of my practice. The “en plein air” landscapes, focused on simplifying the composition to its most essential elements, serve as studies informing the studio paintings.  In the studio I look to highlight any animated opportunities and push my impasto technique to its extreme.