There are a lot of emotions that shine through in a Carina Santos “pour painting.”
The abstract pieces, appropriately named after Santos’ technique of pouring thin layers of oil paint down a canvas, may first resemble hazy mountain ranges. But shades of pink, auburn, green, and blue begin to blend together, and before you know it, you’re thinking of a memory, a well-loved place, a forest that you no longer see, or a feeling that sits somewhere between nostalgia and melancholy.
Santos is certainly not the first to venture into the world of abstraction. However, like Helen Frankenthaler, Mark Rothko, and all the abstract expressionists that came before her, Santos has discovered that there is power in creating images that exist in limbo and are inherently open to interpretation.
“[Santos’] paintings… unfold through a balance of deliberate process and chance, conjuring abstract terrains and skies that evoke memory and movement,” wrote art publication CNTRFLD.ART on Santos’ recent exhibition, Beyond the horizon.
Held earlier this January at Silverlens Galleries New York, the show marked Santos’ debut in the United States. And, just a month prior, the artist’s sold-out show, Eight Views From the Border, was held at Silverlens’ Manila branch. She returned to Manila with her latest show, Other Versions, which opened last February 19 until March 21, in West Gallery.
For Santos, who hails from one of the Philippines’ most prolific art-making families, the success of her New York debut felt like a complete, full-circle moment. “Growing up around artists, we’d always have a day reserved [when visiting New York] for Chelsea to go around the galleries,” Santos told Rolling Stone Philippines. “So just having been asked to show my work in that space was something I never thought I’d be able to do. I was really young then, and I wasn’t even really thinking about pursuing art.”
On The Restless Road to Art-making
Success didn’t come easy for Santos, who once almost swore off life as an artist entirely.
“When I started making art, I was really frustrated with it,” said Santos. “My parents are very good at making hyperrealistic and figurative work. My mom does close-ups of flowers, and my dad is very good at details. So when I started trying to paint, I didn’t feel like I was an artist kasi I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do the same thing.”
This first unsuccessful attempt at painting led Santos to spend a good chunk of the mid-aughts searching for a creative niche of her own. She began her early career as a writer, contributing to The Philippine Star through the column “Quiet Company” and writing extensively on contemporary artists.
But Santos eventually realized that there was more to her creative practice than writing. Over the span of a decade, she has made multiple career pivots and added the job titles of art director, brand designer, collage-maker lecturer, and creative consultant to her resume. When she first moved to London, where she is currently based, Santos even recalled starting out by making candles as a production assistant, before leaving that road to work at a jewelry store.
“I’m so restless,” she said. “I get really fixated on one thing, but then I get bored very quickly.”
When asked if there was a specific reason why she felt the need to explore so many different paths, Santos paused before bringing up a piece of advice that the poet Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta once gave her at a writing workshop. “She was telling me that it’s very helpful for you, as a writer, if you have a job that’s different from writing,” said Santos. She then pointed out how the poet Frank O’Hara and the artist Sol Lewitt both had day jobs at the Museum of Modern Art while pursuing their own crafts.
“My practice as an artist really grows if I nurture my writer’s practice, or my designer’s practice,” said Santos. “If I let one part suffer or neglect it, then the ecosystem kind of falls apart.”
“What I’ve realized is living a full life… allows you to have a richer practice,” she continued. “Kasi you’ll have more things to say. It won’t be all, ‘Oh, I feel sad,’ which is what I really struggled with in the beginning of my career. When I was growing up, I gravitated towards melancholy things. There was a time I felt that my work was very insular, and in a way, selfish. Like, ‘Who cares what you’re feeling?’ I did so many different things, but I feel like they all added to my craft.”
On Finding Calm in the Abstract
After spending years nurturing her different creative practices, Santos eventually returned to painting as a means of quieting her inner restlessness.
At the encouragement of her father, Santos began experimenting with painting mountain ranges. “I was really drawn to them: the texture, the feeling of them,” she said. “And then I wanted to play with the material. I’ve always been drawn to vague, subtle things. I don’t like on-the-nose stuff. I have trouble with, for example, surrealism, where you’re assigning specific symbolisms to a thing. And then that meaning is already ascribed to a painting. I want my paintings to be broader, to be for everyone.”
For Santos, abstraction provides a sense of freedom that she so rarely felt in her attempts at hyperrealism. “I think my nature as a person really struggles with just waiting,” she said. “I have a lot of mental health issues. I’m diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and depression, so I’m a very restless person. But now, a lot of my emotions come out when I’m painting. I really need to finish the work in one sitting, because that… allows me to process my emotions when I sit down and have to do this one thing.”
The act of creating pour paintings is almost a therapeutic ritual for Santos, allowing her to confront her emotions until a painting is complete. “When I approach the work, it’s never negative or positive,” she said. “It’s really me processing my feelings and then arriving at something that’s maybe less lonely, or a little bit uplifting.”
When asked if there are any specific feelings that she wants viewers to take away from her paintings, Santos simply shook her head. “I don’t want to tell you how to feel,” she said. “I don’t want there to be a specific meaning that you have to arrive at to be able to experience my paintings.”
On What Comes Next
After her recent shows these last several months, Santos is more than happy to step away from the spotlight and focus on her different creative practices.
“I just want to go and experiment,” said Santos about her future plans, which include planning for her two solo shows next year, finding more side quests in the world of design, and potentially working on a book of artists with Sa Tadhanan Collective co-founder Augustine Paredes.
Although Santos encourages viewers to draw their own interpretations from her paintings, she acknowledged that there is one idea that she hopes lingers after they encounter her work.
“There was this one quote from Mark Rothko that resonated with me,” said Santos. “I remember someone asked him why he paints those big ‘maudlin’ paintings. And he said, ‘Because if there happens to be somebody who’s feeling a bit lonely and they come and stand in front of my work, they know they’re not alone.’”
