Steve Santos Probes the Interior
By Ruben D.F. Defeo
Published on Today Newspaper, April 26 1995
Style Today Section, View from the Gallery
A VERY minimal show just closed last week at the West Gallery at the Artwalk of SM Megamall. Eight small drawings in watercolor, amply spaced out in between, succinctly delivered the artistic statement: Art could still be about beautiful things, rampant cynicism notwithstanding. Hence, the pictures were simple and true. No fanfare. No frills. No gimmicks. The cool gallery lighting at the West Gallery more than enhanced the unobtrusive quality of the collection. In a way, it simulated the light that bathed the objects limned in the works-quiet, warm, magical.
The one-man exhibit of Steve Santos did not even have a name. Underlying what obviously constituted the theme of the show was the serial way by which the drawings had been so titled-Interiors I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII. The size of the works, except for Interior I, was likewise uniform, differing only according to orientation, two lying on their horizontal axis (9X13”) and five standing vertically (13x9”).
To emphasize the intimacy by which the works had been conceptualized and actualized, Steve Santos resorted to a personal device of including the dates when the pieces were done, the earliest being 2. 14.95, and the latest, 3.4.95. Eighteen days were all Steve Santos needed to come up with a straightforward and so self-assured a show. Too bad, it only had short II days in April to run.
Interior I, which at 14X21” was already the largest in the collection, served as the signature piece. The picture was all about a window, draped by a white diaphanous curtain and charmingly windblown to noticed the difference. Through the technical dexterity of Steve Santos to capture what the eye and mind could see, such ambivalence was cogently, as it was visually and contextually, articulated.
Interior II closes up on a soft white pillow on a bed covered with crumpled white linen. The only contrasting element by brown headboard running across the background in all its geometric severity.
Interior III captures another bed fitted with a pink satin sheet. A piece of cloth (it could be a nightgown or a bed sheet) is casually thrown toward the right upperhand corner of the bed.
Interior IV details a double-mattressed bed, with no linen on, except for the bedcover and two used pillows on top. A long flimsy curtain shimmers in the wind to screen the early-morning sun corning from the bedroom window.
Interior V welcomes the viewer to a corner in a room with lights focused on what looks like a low night table. On its top sits a tubular vase holding sprigs of statis and two wooden boxes presumably containing personal effects, inclusive of secrets safely encoded in the pages of a diary.
Interior VI catches another nook of a room where the curtains are generously gathered to one side of the wall to show a wing chair with matching cushions, rounded by the modeling quality of artificial incandescent light.
Interior VIl shows a three-tiered wooden chiffonier, weather-beaten with age, its door swung open to display a stack of linens and sheets. For added local color, a red-and-white gingham blanket, typical of the design of the abel iloko from the north, has been nonchalantly included in the middle shelf.
Interior VIll ushers the viewer into an antesala of sort, its wall gloriously pervaded with yellow light, dropping dramatically on the various objects that hang on the wall-a summer hat, an outer garment, towels, and other personal effects.
There is no doubt about the enviable degree of verisimilitude by which Steve Santos has captured the scenes. The textures in each work provide the artist rich options to integrate restrained and tasteful contrast in objective surfaces and tactile feelings. Because of the interplay, the character that each work breathes is almost episodic in scope.
In each of the interior scene, Steve Santos freezes an intimate action to jostle the mind. Through eight short stories, he probes the vast pictorial possibilities of inner sanctums. And without necessarily providing resolutions to the antecedents of actions being depicted or portrayed in the various visual narratives, he succeeds in providing a feast for our eyes (however voyeuristic the inclination might have been) and making us enraptured with the awesome capacity of art to revel and to reveal.
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