Portrait of an Artist: Cesar Santos | Documentary

how he's able to capture a pic a portrait of someone that that's a painting but it looks like a photo and how that's evolved it's just amazing to see when we created a gallery in Miami which is which was six years ago initially bringing the group of artists which I was primarily representing in Europe and wanting to connect with local artists or mix my European born in base artists with artists from the local scene the name of Caesar 50th quite quickly they wanted you to follow the footsteps of being a contemporary artist they wanted you to kind of fall into the mold of what being an artist meant today and I in that was not my nature I loved classical painting I loved portraiture and every time I tried they try to kill it my passion by saying that has been done there's no need for that and you have to be more expressive be more don't don't don't listen to but about what people say if they like it or not it shouldn't be about that it should be about self-expression and I said well I want to suppress myself like this and I shouldn't care about what you say eating [Music] I am Cesar Santos I am 34 years old and I am an artist professional painter I [Music] was born in Cuba in Santa Clara and at that time I was I love to draw always since I was a little kid I was in involving school activities that had to do with painting murals and stuff like that artistically and my uncle was a prominent artist in Cuba Raul Santo SEPA he's been involved in you know museum curating museum shows and actually exhibiting around the world in important part museums and he saw that I like to draw so he encouraged me to keep drawing my father on the other hand wanted me to have a better balanced life more balanced about life and he put me into boxing he thought that if I only dedicated myself to kind of like high isolating the room and draw every time I had a problem or an issue outside because in Cuba you have to live with the worlds with the worse in society as well as the best you cannot get select a group and being that that's what communism does to you you have to be out there and I kind of survived for yourself it's like a jungle so so my father thought that it would be better if he will put me into boxing so that I can have more confidence and have like another type of a different life than then just being one side you know and my mom was so just working at home taking care of me on my sister and on the house and she always offered a lot of love I never had any I never ripped I don't remember even being like mistreated or spanked or anything by either one of them so it was it was great when I was born in the 80s my grandma left escaping a boat and she became a citizen and then when she claimed us it took us like four years by finally when I was 12 we were able to to immigrate to Miami I went to Palm Springs middle school in Hialeah and my one of the teachers there changed my life I think because she saw my passion for painting and she said listen you're about to go to high school soon I don't want you to lose this passion and public high school probably do it for you you should apply to one of the top schools in America for arts so that you can evolve in what you love to do and I said what is that and then they send me to to apply to two schools new world scope the arts high school and - design architecture singing hi and I was rejected at the new world School of the Arts but I was able to pass the test to go into - I did I studied architecture design painting and as soon as I finished I had a portfolio strong enough to be able to get a full scholarship at the new world screw the arts so I got accepted there which they rejected me for high school for high school but I went I went again and they got me so I studied four more years but after I saw the how would I say the manipulation of the established art schools they wanted you to follow the footsteps of being a contemporary artist they wanted you to kind of fall into the mold of what being an artist meant today and I that was not my nature I loved classical painting I loved portraiture and every time I tried they try to kill my passion by saying that has been done there's no need for that and you have to be more expressive be more don't don't don't listen to but about what people say if they like it or not it shouldn't be about that it should be about self-expression and I said well I want to suppress myself like this and I shouldn't care about what you say either because you've given me that advice I could take it against you - so then I decided to just drop off I left college like two classes before getting my bachelor's degree I still had to finish the world on 2 June now I have that whole term ahead of me and I said I'm not gonna risk this I took this opportunity when I go so I said listen I'm moving to Italy to finish this number so just surprisingly left I am Matthew - I'm 30 years old and I'm a professional opera singer I met Caesar through a mutual friend he also knew my wife from his first gallery as our newest gallery where she worked we relate so much in the the classical world and being young people and in this and this what seems to be like ancient kind of art world it's not ancient but you know in today's pop culture you know the first thing that people aren't listening to is is not opera and I think a lot of goes with the same with art I mean especially here in Miami you see you know a lot of graffiti and that kind of street art that's that's beautiful and has its own weight and worth but we've been able as friends to kind of talk about our stories to come to making it in the art world and making classical art relevant in today's time at the Angel Academy it's a private Academy founded by Michael John angel an English painter and he worked with one of the last masters in Florence in murals and churches and stuff so he knew what whole trade was and I was able to learn it from him personally because of my background and all the studies in contemporary art my brain was a little bit more open to see both worlds because a lot of the students there were very traditional very anti contemporary art and they lost a lot because they were just focus in the little classical world so I finished the school wing record amount of time nobody has ever finished the Academy as fast as I did I did a four year program in a year and a half I worked every night every weekend my wife I met the first week of being there and she's a witness because I said listen I came here for this and you want to be with me but we're gonna do this together as soon as I got back to Miami gallery in Coral Gables so annuda he they only represent Cuban artists so I had that to my advantage because I was Cuban and but everybody told me no estas too high of a level for you out of school maybe if I was if I went to the lowest of the galleries maybe I had a better percentage of getting into it because they're a little bit more desperate for good quality work but I will sell it a bit too self-confident and I sell it and I know the value of my art I'm gonna go shoot at the top of what I can do and immediately worked oh my friends were like oh man I thought that wouldn't work because it breaks all the standards you know you're supposed to have all these presentation - no I just took the painting person like that I said listen man I painted this you want to represent me they're like what's comfortable so then that's the way it started it was very casual very last the way it should be done why should you spend all this money preparing this beautiful portfolio if your art doesn't speak to them or doesn't represent you know where you're claiming I always wanted to have a gallery in in the in the middle Wynwood but I was too classical to be accepted there so it took me a while and we created a gallery in Miami which is which was six years ago initially bringing the group of artists which I was primarily representing in Europe and wanting to connect with local artists or mix my European born in base artists with artists from the local scene the name of Caesar appeared quite quickly but now my gallery Waltman Ortega represents me in Miami in Paris in London and they also go to all the art fairs important art fairs so our Miami you have extremely serious strong work from the modern masters post-war era the pop era Warhol Lichtenstein de Kooning Picasso should go you will find them all here multi-million dollar pieces but you also have galleries that represent not only those works but more of career artists that are living today and have tremendous following and are in major museums and estates and are being really acquired in a real-time fashion in the affairs of today you have to submit an application eight to ten months before the event so if the project is accepted then you have plenty of time almost venti of time without is to think of what we want to do the technical level almost the perfection which he is able to take the idea of drawing two is absolutely superb you don't see it you don't have ten similar works in the fair you may have works which are of course good and maybe better for other reasons but in terms of drawing this is an absolutely gorgeous work and at the same time he shows in this work if you look at different areas of the drawing that he is capable of taking you very far in the idea of illusion with reality with a photorealistic reality and in other parts of the work is more sketchy more childish in the way he created work and he likes to combine all these different sources into one single work and he is one of the best young young portrait artists in the world I mean I've just seen over the years I've I've even seen him grow I mean I'm not an expert with art but in terms of how he's able to capture a pic a portrait of someone that that's a painting but it looks like a photo and how that's evolved it's just amazing to see the struggle mainly with the contemporary art is that they a lot of that is based on the dark side of humanity and the negative side and it has been changing a little bit towards more colorful more hope hopefulness and my art from the beginning was very positive I wanted to show Beauty I wanted to delight like I wanted to bring something positive to the viewer instead of these dark things that we always saw in galleries where people were like I understand this is crazy so in a way I had to kind of convince the contemporary art world that what I was doing is valuable too because I'm a contemporary guy like I am a new kind of artist from this generation maybe if almost a hundred years old I understand them telling me that I'm old but I'm young and I'm bringing this new way of painting because even though it's based on the principle of classical painting I'm still applying the technology that made every everything from today so I always felt that that I had that value so a little bit it'll they have been coming to a septic painting should be a propaganda to the psychology of every people every person that looks at painting it shouldn't be about what then who painted it it shouldn't be about anything else other than a relationship between the painting and the viewer [Music]

Channel: Kirsten Rincon

Views: 728,807

Keywords: CesarSantos, Artist, Documentary, ShortDocumentary, Short, Film, Portrait, Art, Miami, Wynwood, ArtBasel, ArtMiami

Id: kLkHxqh7SHg

Length: 13min 24sec (804 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 08 2016