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SANTI LARA

(Born in Tomelloso, 1975). He lives and works in Gijon and Madrid.

 

Santiago Lara plays with the known and the unexpected. The Spanish artist uses an imaginary yet accurate language to depict an art standing in-between a dreamy and real land experimenting with art as a communication tool.

 

PhD in Fine Arts. Complutense University, Madrid (Spain). He combines his individual work as a painter with audiovisual experimentation within the Laramascoto collaborative. After starting his training at the San Carlos School of Fine Arts in Valencia, he later moved to the School of Fine Arts of the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, where he graduated. He then continued studying at Faculté d’Arts Plastiques in Bordeaux, from where he moved to Paris. After two years in France, he set up residence in Asturias, though also spending long periods in Berlin, where he has developed projects and exhibitions in places such as Kunstlerhaus GlogauAIR or Bethanien Kunstraum Kreuzberg. His pedigree shows a wide recognition with Prizes such as Real Academia de España in Rome and the Casa de Velázquez residences; Prize Ayto. de Villaviciosa in 2014; Grant Cajastur in 2010; Prize Ayudas a la Producción LABoral Centre of Art (Gijon/Berlin); Grant Leonardo da Vinci (Paris) in 2002 and the Prize Antonio Lopez García in 2005. His work has been exhibited in venues including Ruttkowski;68 Gallery (Cologne); Saatchi Gallery (London), Puxagallery (Madrid). Liebre Gallery (Madrid); Gema Llamazares Gallery (Gijon); Sala Borrón (Oviedo) and Art Fairs like Arte Lisboa; Arte Santander; Arco; Estampa; JustMAD, MULAFEST and SUMMA Art Fair (Madrid).

Lara's aesthetics defines itself from the indifference of art and craft. Thus it dissolves clear distinctions between avant-garde and mass culture and reveals the mechanisms of importance of the culture industry. His work is a reflection over the potentials of paintings in the era of media, thus rescuing art from the need to barely maintain itself and be banal.

                                                                       Florian Waldvogel

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