Curtis Talwst Santiago at COOPER COLE

Artist: Curtis Talwst Santiago

Exhibition title: Moving through burning haze

Venue: COOPER COLE, Toronto, Canada

Date: April 1 – May 13, 2023

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and COOPER COLE, Toronto

COOPER COLE is pleased to present Moving through burning haze, an exhibition of the work of Curtis Talwst Santiago. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition at the gallery.

Santiago works in multiple media to examine questions of memory, ancestry, and diasporic imagination. His works weave historical, familial, and speculative narratives together to question colonial frameworks and celebrate forgotten forms of knowledge.

This exhibition presents a series of recent works that pay respect to Santiago’s parents as familial teachers of Trinidadian traditions. The artist is particularly interested in how this knowledge is transferred, becomes embodied, and lives on in the diaspora. Through drawing, painting, and sculpture, Santiago reflects on the cultural practices that his parents taught him about, as well as his own experiences of visiting Trinidad, while employing imagination to connect the migratory narrative dots.

Moving through burning haze depicts Trinidadian carnival, its celebratory practices, and related stories from a diasporic perspective. Featured centrally in the works, the Jab Jab character in the J’Ouvert parade appears as someone spirited, exuberant, and potentially sinister. To reflect on the nuances of this character, Santiago has drawn dozens of portraits that meditate on Jab Jab’s depth and multiplicity, and how he is used as an instructional figure. In his larger paintings and sculptural works, Santiago explores carnival’s embodied dynamism and the collision of history, ritual, and myth.

Curtis Talwst Santiago (b. 1979, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) studied as an apprentice of Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun and at the New York Studio School. He has completed several residencies including Black Rock Senegal, Pioneer Works Brooklyn, and at the University of Tennessee. Santiago has exhibited internationally at museums such as the Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, The Drawing Center, New York; The FLAG Art Foundation, New York; The New Museum, New York; The Eli and Edythe Broad Museum at Michigan State University, East Lansing; the Institute of Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond; the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan; The Pérez Art Museum Miami; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; and the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah; among others. The artist was included in the inaugural 2019 Toronto Biennial of Art in Toronto, Canada, the SITE Santa Fe SITELines.2018 Biennial, Casa Tomada, in Santa Fe, NM, and was featured in the 2018 Biennale de Dakar in Dakar, Senegal. Santiago lives and works in Munich, Germany.

Curtis Talwst Santiago, Moving through burning haze, 2023, exhibition view, COOPER COLE, Toronto

Curtis Santiago, Untitled , 2019, Acrylic on canvas, 35 x 63 in (88.9 x 160 cm)

Curtis Santiago, Untitled, 2019, Acrylic on Canvas, 30 x 30 in (76.2 x 76.2 cm)

Curtis Santiago, The Places We Will Come and Will be From, 2017- ongoing, Spray paint, oil, charcoal, pastel, acrylic, laces and grommets on canvas, 100 x 144 in (254 x 365.8 cm)

Curtis Santiago, Untitled, 2022, Spray paint, oil, charcoal, pastel and acrylic on canvas, 59 x 102.37 in (149.9 x 260 cm)