Kho Sant�’s Youthful Explorations of Balance and Dissonance
By Cherie Louise
Kho Sant�. Movement on blue.
Kho Sant�’s is a delight: his commitment to painting and art studies is total; his bright enthusiasm and serious but humble pursuit of art is refreshing. The resultant abstract paintings show a talented and disciplined emerging artist. Influenced by modern masters whose styles and techniques he meticulously studies and practices, Sant� digests what he learns, integrating what he studies with his own vision, his own hand. His paintings are both diligently academic and creatively executed.
"Maybe it is simple enough to say that my goal is to make the painting that my mind sees and my eyes are waiting to see," Sant� summarises. Sant� is willing to wait for those paintings to emerge. At age 30, Sant� is early in his career, having begun painting only ten years ago. "I am a young person," he states, "so it is not important to be presented like a great painter. It is important to speak of art." Sant� has a surprisingly mature sense of patience and lacks the strident egoism that often plagues younger artists. "If I can give even one good sensation with all my artistic works, I am happy to be a painter," says Sant�.
Based in Bologna, Italy, Sant� studies at the Bologna Art Academy. "I am still studying at Bologna’s Art Academy and this is very important for me because I am [learning] an art process with all the best of Bologna’s teachers of art, and I am collaborating with them," explains Sant�. "This is not only a relation between a student and a teacher. We are working together, and we are trying to make something good."
Previous to his formal art education, he learned through self-directed study. "I studied painting with reproductions of Kandinsky, Mirò, Dalì, Picasso and with books. During my travels I visited a lot of museums around the world," Sant� recalls. He has travelled extensively and his international experience, combined with his strong family ties, have shaped his worldview and informed his paintings. "I believe that in our time we are living two kinds of evolution together. There is a force that is international and this force makes the different people more similar and makes more familiar different cultures," says Sant�. "This first force is the force of globalization. The second force is the force of culture of our family and our land. This culture is very important because it is the culture where we were born, the culture of ours parents."
As a result, in Sant�’s work he reaches toward a new voice while solidly based in tradition. His works incorporate international styles, drawing mainly from European and American influences. And as tradition dictates, one must learn the fundamentals of one’s pursuit; the only way to riff on masterworks is to practice your scales to perfection. For Sant�, this has translated into emulating the painters he admires and whose styles he is drawn to, primarily geometric abstraction and action painting. His historical references are clear: Kandinsky, Pollock, and Mondrian, , among others; for himself, Sant� cites Hans Hartung and Andr� Masson among his influences. Sant�’s executes these varying and difficult styles but does not simply recreate what has come before; he combines these dissonant styles and creates what he calls works of "geometric expressionism." Sant� explains, "If the geometry is the static, I think that the action painting is the dynamism. And so the union of these two kinds of styles makes the bubbles on the water!"
Upon first glance, many of Sant�’s works may appear dated–so clearly influenced by works created in the 20th century. To this end he says, "I think that a young painter like me has to show in his paintings that he knows the past so in the future maybe I can lessen the modern art influences. But right now it is important to show what history has taught me." Certainly the challenge for Sant� is to move far enough past this influential history that his works don’t just become a refiguring of what we’ve already seen. And he’s well on his way in the development of his own style. Sant�’s fresh unification of free, though sometimes rigidly contained, drips over and around harsh, unforgiving geometry, creates a balance, a harmony that keeps the viewer’s attention. Mastery of technique is immediately evident. The thoughtful use of color, oftentimes dramatic, sometimes subtle, plays with the viewer’s eye, creating depth and form. And as is his intention, positive and negative space interchange giving movement to the many planes in his works. The balance of these layers is Sant�’s strongest achievement. He is creating "something good."
A number of works showcase both Sant�’s range and ability. In Open Lines, 2001, Sant� has separated bright and solidly colored right-angled forms with thick gray lines within which he has drizzled white and black paint that does not, even for a drop, stray from the confines of the narrow strips of gray. Beyond the initial visual impact–it’s just nice to look at–your eyes and mind can begin to concoct the scene. Contained chaos, so well hemmed in is that dripped paint between the solid forms. Or perhaps the forms are a city landscape and the gray, black, and white, a stormy day moving in. Perhaps with this work, Sant� had only an interest in stretching his compositional, technical, and color theory muscles. Whatever the intention and wherever it takes you, Sant� has given us more than enough to play with and contemplate.
An exercise in grayscale, colors limited to only black and white and all shades in between, Tonality, 2004, shows complex movement and depth. Relying only on composition and shading, Sant� captures the viewer again and again with a geometric background that combines a base grid pattern within which he has also created forms that are, along the edges, hard-edged and as you move toward the center, curved. Over this, fractured black and white paint is dripped. The curved geometric forms in the middle of the work take on a three-dimensional quality, emerging and/or receding from view. The drips over the complex forms add an animated quality that breaks up the sterility of the geometry. Though his paintings usually feature a lot of color, Tonality is similar in appearance to many of Sant�’s works; geometric patterned background with drip painting.
For a very simplified departure, examine Uomo Seduto, 2004. It is composed only of a solid blue background and three lines–one gray, one white, one a slightly darker shade of blue than the background–and one solid black circle. This is a figure. Is it coiled and ready to jump? Dance? Sitting, bowing its head in sorrow? With works like this in the midst of his mostly much-busier compositions, Sant� shows a firm grasp on a far-flung spectrum of color combinations, form, and composition; he can move about as he wishes.
In the early stages of his lifelong journey into art, Kho Sant� has learned and created much of note already. His works are enticing in their balance of dissonant themes, creativity, and exacting technique. His future is enticing in its promise.
