About
When you ride a train back to your hometown, you look out across the vast scenery - into a sky that seems to stand still in its endless blue while the trees and the scattered towns and the telephone wires rush by like a movie reel. In the middle of the country, far away from the bustling city and the boiling traffic is a plain white house with one giant tree and one tiny swing in the yard. The house looks empty and the only car there is a broken-down and rusty one but the swing is swaying in the breeze. And as you pass that yard and the swing and come upon row after row of subdivided neighborhoods with houses that all look exactly the same with the same car in each drive-way and their drivers all leaving at the same time going to virtually the same place - you are still being haunted by that swing.
When I look at Justin Santora's work, I not only see that swing, but I see the child that once swayed in it. Justin's prints and illustrations are complex in process and thought but simple in beauty. The ideas of innocence and the loss there-of, the weaving memories that shape our lives, and the longing of someone who is outside looking in are all prevalent in the composition of Justin's work. The nostalgia of childhood that lingers on into our adult lives and the paths of daydreams we want to lose ourselves in are inherent in his art. The starkness of the landscapes and the muted panes of color form an emotional bond with the subject matter of the pieces through the painstakingly detailed fine lines and scratchings of the drawings themselves. Based out of Northern Illinois, Justin's amazing work stands out as a monument to all of our wishes even in the face of our sometimes daunting reality.
-Erin Armstrong, Kill Hatsumomo Prints/Screwball Press
Education
2008 Bachelor of Arts, Printmaking;
Secondary Education
Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago,
IL
2006 National Student Exchange
Bishop’s University, Lennoxville, QC,
Canada
Solo Exhibitions
2010 A Walking Tour of Here - Fillintheblank Gallery, Chicago, IL
2009 Gestures in a Blender –
Within(Reason), Chicago, IL
2008 A Letter of Resignation –
Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, IL
Group Exhibitions
2010 Crazy4Cult: The Case of the Redundant Number- Gallery 1988, Los Angeles, CA
2010 Poster Park, Group rock poster exhibition - SCHUNK* Heerlen, The Netherlands
2010 The Greatest Moments in Sports History (A Poster Show)- Gallery 1988, Los Angeles, CA
2009 A Similar Sound: the Art of the Rock Poster - {fillintheblank} Gallery, Chicago, IL
2008 Annual Juried Student Art Exhibition
– Juror: Claire Ashley, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago,
IL
2007 Water
– Group exhibition, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, IL
Experience
Studio artist, freelance illustrator and screen printer, 2008 to current
Gallery assistant, 2008
Within Reason Art Gallery, Chicago, IL
Experiece includes
preparation, handling, installation, and de-installation of artwork, as well as
general maintenance at a gallery space in Pilsen’s Arts District.
Student Teaching, 2008
Gage Park High School, Chicago, IL
Responsible for
classroom instruction and management, as well as attendance, grading,
preparation of materials, and lesson planning in the school’s Art
program.