Mexican artist Alejandro Santiago explored possibilities of form and color by fusing pre-Columbian influences with modernist approaches to artmaking. Santiago’s vibrant, vivacious works abstract figurative forms and explore modernist relationships between figure, line, and ground, evincing the effect on the artist of Rufino Tamayo, with whom Santiago studied in Oaxaca. In the late 1990s Santiago temporarily emigrated to Paris, and upon his return to his hometown of Teococuilco de Marcos Pérez in 2001 was moved by the number of people from the area that had emigrated to America. Vowing to honor the departed and ballasted by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, Santiago embarked on the massive project 2501 Migrantes, repopulating the town and surrounding area with 2501 unique clay sculptures of migrants.
The present work, Biombo II, completed the year of Santiago’s return to Mexico, exemplifies the artist’s exploration of forms and showcases his distinct style. Composed of eight canvas panels rendered in a unique, double-sided screen format, this work incorporates expressive pre-Columbian styles and modernist interrogations of abstraction and figuration to create a work that showcases its constituent cultural legacies.