Angela Santana

Angela Santana was born in Zurich. She studied graphic design in Zurich at the F+F School of Art & Design / Schule Für Gestaltung. 

Angela Santana lives and works in New York City.

The mass of illicit images online mirrors its vast demand in society today as well as the fast pace of its consumption. Angela Santana is not only questioning the ethics of this phenomenon that has helped shape and distort the perception of women in our collective consciousness. She is applying these images in her work by embracing the internet as her modern day muse.

With her unique technique she disrupts the classic approach to oil paint; an extremely time consuming process whereby Santana composes each art work digitally in hundreds of layers, radically deconstructing and reinterpreting it. She is allowing the digital anomalies and flaws to drench into her work – before bringing it onto large scale canvases in oil. These demanding larger than life figures and close-up portraits dominate the space in scale, forcing to decelerate speed – both in its creation and for the viewer. Santana emphasises the strength and permanence of her work through the medium of oil painting: An antagony to the fleeting digital thumbnail.

Her works capture the strong contrast of the sharp digital process and rigid brushstroke that combine with the organic shapes of the female body, resulting in an empowering reinterpretation. The new subject having been transformed and shifted from objectification – the object has become a subject.