Santos Hu/surrealism

Santos Hu/surrealism
Born in the South of Taiwan, Santos Hu, alias Wen Shyan Hun, began to study Fine Arts in his home country at the Superior School of Fine Arts in Taipei. In the early 1980’s, he moved to Spain to expand his artistic knowledge at the prestigious University Complutense of Madrid, from which he graduated in 1988.
Ever since 1987, he has continuously exhibited in Spain as well as in Taiwan. Having re-ceived numerous prizes and awards for his work, which is mostly still life with sometimes impressionistic, often surrealistic touches, Santos Hu is a master in combining the inner and outer lives…the real world and a dream-like state that co-exist.
The XVII century gypsy baroque, the Spanish and the Asian Art is what combines and be-comes the perfect melting pot of various influences…both European and Oriental. With his roots in Asia and upbringing in Spain, he has developed a distinct sense of style in his still life that often combines realistic images of objects like fruit, ceramic and the female figure that transcends into a lesser realistic sphere, making the images three-dimensional and surrealistic to the viewer’s eye.
The unique works presented are constantly dealing with still-life themes. He elaborates on it meticulously, with the precision seen in the Golden Age. He chooses colors of perfection for each fruit and composes a happiness of baroque vitality which totally goes beyond the well-known as they incorporate the human figure, frequently fruit and/or art and make her mother-of-pearl like skin enticing, placing her in a sphere that is distant yet recognizable. This trans-parency makes the figure somehow immaterial as it melts her with the realistic objects.
His paintings are of an elegant nature…seductive with opulent curves…similar to the XVII century Andalusian (gypsy) baroque, as well as the Spanish, whose work were more authentic in the realization of their motives. In addition, he includes the poetic philosophy of the Eastern Tao. The female figure is utilized as a symbol of the projected inspiration from the inception of an idea to the current presence. While always keeping her reserved, distant and untouchable, he takes us to a world full of imagination and originality where cool colors dominate, converting the abundant objects on his canvas into distant images. Hu’s play with the shade is a constant reminder of Chinese poetry which is only possible through the ima-ginative creation in his canvases, through the fragrance of the dream. The art of Santos Hu is a passionate hymn to celebrate vivid spring…forever in the miracle of this work well done.
We might talk of his work in terms of “surrealism”, from “hyper-realism” to sometimes “im-pressionism” and all of that would be too narrow to conceptually describe his work. His technique is impeccable…a master of design, perspective, proportion, size and color. Nature, in its full abundance, is the source and the origin of all of this work as he recreates the essence of objects, thus giving them new identity.
Numerous Awards and Special Mentions have been complimentary to him in Spain. He has participated in many individual and collective exhibitions in Taiwan and Spain, including, but not limited to:
1990: American Institute in Taiwan; 1st prize “Vila de Cedeira” contest, La Coruña, Spain
1994: Galería Infantas, and Galería Gaudí, both Madrid, Spain
1999: Apolo Gallery, Taipei; Galería Mar, Barcelona, Spain
2002: Galería Pizarro 8, Valencia, Spain; XVII BMW Painting Award
2006: Galería Arimany, Tarragona, and Galería Benedito, Málaga, Spain