The source image for Santiago Montoya’s Space Walk is a photograph of trailblazing astronaut Ed White taken during the first ever U.S spacewalk duringthe Gemini 4 mission. The event occurred on 3rd June 1965, starting over the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii and lasting 23 minutes, ending over the Gulf of Mexico.
This historic image marks a defining moment in the early space age. Montoya’s reimagining of the scene is a vivid celebration of human ingenuity and drive to explore the unknown. Ed White’s mission is symbolic of America’s reach in space, capturing the glory of the 20th century space race as well as speaking to a universal human yearning to venture beyond frontiers.
"I feel like a million dollars…
This is the greatest experience. It’s just tremendous."
Astronaut Ed White during the first U.S space walk, 3rd June 1965
Santiago Montoya’s work follows a multidisciplinary approach that embraces traditional painting practice in tandem with found objects and video documentary. In carefully structured series, he combines the organised aesthetics of materials and mediums loaded with cultural meaning, resulting in collections where appearance and concept bear equal weight. Montoya comments on a broad swathe of political and social issues, from conservation and dispossession to the transmission ofinformation. He aims to probe questions at assumed – or learned – narratives and bring to light the victory of human endeavour in the face of adversity.
Taking Andy Warhol’s statement ‘I like money on the wall’ as a literal starting point, Montoya turned to paper currency as a medium.
