Santiago Montoya

Santiago Montoya

Colombian, b. 1974

Contemporary Colombian artist Santiago Montoya follows a multidisciplinary approach that embraces traditional painting, found objects and video documentary. In carefully structured series, he uses the aesthetics of materials to introduce meaning, resulting in collections where appearance and concept bear equal weight. He comments on a broad swathe of political issues, from conservation and dispossession to the transmission of information, aiming to uncover reality and bring to light the victory of the human spirit over adversity.

Montoya was born on 11 September 1974 in Bogotá, the second of three children in an enterprising family; besides running a cacao plantation, his father has worked variously as a racing driver, pilot, ship’s captain and fisherman. In 1983, the family fulfilled a long-held dream of moving to Old Providence Island in the Caribbean, where they lived until 1985. Montoya had been painting from around the age of eight, and at 10 he began classes with a local artist. Experimenting with different techniques, he developed a personal drawing style and started using watercolours, reflecting the vivid hues of his remote Caribbean setting. Montoya often travelled with Colombia’s national BMX team and took the opportunity to visit major international museums. By the age of 12 he was already aspiring to be like Pablo Picasso[1] and become an artist.

After completing high school in Bogotá in 1993, Montoya undertook a mandatory year of military service and then enrolled for a Master of Fine Arts degree course at the Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá (1995–2000). There he studied with the painter Luis Roldán and received training in a range of disciplines, from video to sculpture. Admiring the directness of Picasso’s artistic approach and strongly influenced by both Abstract Expressionism[2] and Francisco Goya’s overwhelming black paintings,[3] he set out to explore the language of composition and colour. In 1999 he took part in group exhibitions in Colombia and Germany and held his first solo show, Camila. Following graduation, Montoya ventured on an epic journey to Ushuaia, at the southern tip ofArgentina, and visited Antarctica. In 2001 he got married.

Montoya’s first major sequence of works was the ‘Target’ series (2003), a set of paintings of circles based on geometric abstraction – for him, ‘Colour and form achieving a perfect communion ... like a mathematical progression’. His next project continued the quest for new formal possibilities. A chance viewing of an exhibition in New York introduced him to the work of the American Conceptual[4] sculptor Tom Friedman, who showed Montoya that there was room in art for many of his ideas. Influenced by the American’s subtle humour and use of ready-mades, Montoya began to incorporate found materials into his own work. The resulting ‘Digital File’ series (2004–2007) is a collection of square compositions constructed from previously painted old canvases, referencing modern methods of storing information. This expansion of the traditional medium of painting provided a fresh resource for structuring and visually articulating his thoughts.

During a second trip, undertaken with his wife in 2004 to 2005, Montoya explored large tracts of south-eastern Africa, driving some 29,000 kilometres and recording the experience in four video and photographic documentaries, ‘News from Africa’ (2008). His intention was to draw viewers into a dialogue or personal encounter with the complex reality of this little-known area. The irony of some of the photographic titles – Excess Baggage, Diamonds are Forever – suggests a wry but compassionate interpretation of some of the continent’s challenges.

Often questioned about African poverty on his return, Montoya turned next to cash as a theme. ‘The Great Swindle’ (2007–2012) looks at paper money as a platform of political propaganda, exploiting iconic pictures to bolster power and embed imagery in the national consciousness. The series journeys through history exploring iconography and idealism across a cultural spectrum, from model planes and boats inspired by Communist China’s food coupons of the 1950s and 1960s to portraits of fallen dictators. On a formal level, Montoya perfects his fabrication process, using artworks meticulously constructed of banknotes as aesthetic representations of his research and keen observation.

‘Forgive Me Father, For I Have Painted’ (2011) is a series that responds to contemporary art’s fascination with new media, often at the expense of classical painting techniques. For although Montoya acknowledges the importance of investigating novel approaches, since college days he has been convinced that painting is an enduring and expressive medium both for representation and for conveying ideas.

Montoya has exhibited widely in Colombia and in Venezuela, Mexico, Panama, the United States, Korea, Spain, France, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Greece, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland. Solo and group exhibitions include FORMARTE, Fundación Corazón Verde, Bogotá, Colombia(2009) and Tina b. Contemporary Art Festival, Prague, Czech Republic (2009). His works have been exhibited at many international art fairs: ArtBo Art Fair, Bogotá (2007–2011); SCOPE Basel, Switzerland (2009–2010); Korean International Art Fair (KIAF), Seoul, Korea (2010); Penderecki PINTA Art Show, London, England (2010–2011); Foro Sur, Cáceres, Spain (2011); and Houston Art Fair, Houston, USA (2011).

‘History has always fascinated me’, observes Montoya. ‘The psychological approach to history is always of great interest to me: how our behaviour is different depending on the context we live in. How we behave and respond to the world that surround us, and the world that others have created, transformed or destroyed.’

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