I grew up in Santiago de Chile during the transition to democracy. I learned firsthand what it was like to gain personal freedoms and to experience the modernization of a city. My work investigates how humans assimilate to their current landscape through their bodies, showing us as ephemeral codes in the crowd.
About the Artist
Chilean artist Santiago Salvador Ascui (b. 1983) paints melodic, colorful arrays of pattern-like assembled figures and faces. Rendered with a hand-painted care, the artist employs careful lines and bright tones to create figurative meditations on color that guide the viewers’ eye along on a journey of chroma and hue. While his works are vibrant, decorative, and conjure up a sense of fun and happiness, Ascui’s deliberate use of repetition and unification through his subject matter suggests a feeling of monotony and conformity, alluding to a critique of modern consumer culture.
Solo Exhibition, El Tiempo Que Se Mira, Galeria Animal, 2019
Exhibited at Corey Helford Gallery, 2019
Featured in Vice, 2016