Born in Havana, Cuba, Santos is a self-taught artist.
Much of his work is influenced by his surrounding environment and found objects, particularly, by the relationship between space and depth, presence and absence, the seen and unseen.
Layers of materials are built up to create depth and movement. Each layer applied by the artist on the canvas is a catalyst to the ultimate creation of his process. This implied definition of space, grounds his craft to a sense of an indistinct realm where a kind of blurred imagery articulates an evocative energy sought to awaken the viewer’s perception.
Santos’s neo-expressionist oeuvre, which combines abstraction, text and figuration, draws great inspiration from artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose revolutionary work was among the first to include graffiti and text based elements as integral components of the composition.
Jorge Luis Santos’s work is as much visual as it is visceral. In his artistry, there is not only form, color, line and a wealth of textured surfaces but also, a free passage of design. With an intuitive exploration of visual language, the artist works using a wide range of materials, delving into abstraction, concrete art, abstract-expressionism, collage, and exploratory techniques in mixed-media art.
A careful look at his many-layered compositions reveals a fine line into forms that are purely conceptual or expressions that have a somewhat referential nature. It is clear that, essentially, the ultimate intention of his work is to provoke an emotional response.
The artist has had various one person exhibitions in Havana, Miami and Italy. He has participated in group shows in Havana, New York, Spain and Italy. His works are part of public and private collections in Cuba, the United States, France, Italy, Sweden, Austria, Holland and the Dominican Republic.
