Santiago Licata
Santiago Licata (b. 1986, Buenos Aires, Argentina) studied Visual Arts at IUNA between 2006 and 2008. He furthered his education in woodcut techniques at the workshop led by Juan Sebastián Carnero, in photography and laboratory techniques with Omar Conde Agesta, in writing with Silvia Gurfein, in the workshop and clinic of work with Patricio Larrambebere, and in drawing with Eduardo Stupía at the Di Tella University. In 2014, he received the Chandon Acquisition Award at arteBA, and in 2017, he was selected to participate in the Buenos Aires Young Art Biennial. His work has been exhibited at fairs and shows in Mexico City, New York, Minneapolis, and Buenos Aires, and his pieces are part of public and private collections in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, and Buenos Aires.
In Santiago Licata's phenomenology, light emerges as an animated entity that takes control over the reflecting object, causing it to flicker, vaporize, and lose its density. This animating light transitions from figuration to pure matter and from matter to phenomenon. It undergoes a conversion from beam to image/image to beam, melding into a nebula charged with nuance, subtlety, and brilliance. In this way, light takes on its own behavior and gains a body, an entity, eyes, and features.
Crafted with chalk, graphite, ferrite, and often beeswax and synthetic enamel, his works are characterized by a spontaneous and intuitive process. The procedure itself results in the form, and referentiality arises without planning.
Santiago explores the expressive capacities of drawing and painting by juxtaposing geometry and organic forms to enhance the strangeness that arises from an image precise in execution but with an ambiguous interpretation, situated between the feasible and the fantastic, between planimetry and illusion.
Education
2017 Clínica y análisis de obra con Leila Tschop.
2016 Taller de dibujo con Eduardo Stupía.
2015 Taller y clínica de obra con Patricio Larrambebere.
Solo shows
2022 “Una Moneda” | Curaduría: Benjo Felice | PASTO Galería. Buenos Aires.
2015 “Buscando luz de topos” | Galería Ruby, Buenos Aires.
2014 “Vamos allá” |Galería Ruby, Buenos Aires.
2014 “Era mi sombra negra” | Galería Blanco, Buenos Aires.
Group exhibitions
2023 Nuevas Adquisiciones | Curaduría: Rodrigo Alonso | MACBA, Buenos Aires.
2023 Me and my shadow and I | Europa Gallery. New York
2022 “Por debajo del árbol” | Praxis, taller de arquitectura de Agustin Hernandez
organizada por galería Peana, Ciudad de Mexico.
2022 “Moon spiral heart attack” | Galería Dreamsong, Minneapolis.
2020 XXIV Premio Klemm | Buenos Aires.
2020 “Gil the world”| Galería OHNO, La Verdi, Buenos Aires.
2019 “Camaradas Ballroomcore” | Munar, Buenos Aires.
2019 “Cámara de almendras” | Galería Jamaica, Rosario.
2019 “ColdPrey” | Galería Lubov, Nueva York.
2018 “Herbarum” | Fundación Beethoven, Buenos Aires.
2017 Bienal de Arte Joven | Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires.
2016 “Poligrafías” | Panal, BsAs.
2014 “Fantasia fantasma” | Fundación Lebensohn.
2014 Premio adquisición Chandon | arteBA, Buenos Aires.
