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Test of Time A conversation with New York City-based artist Carmine Santaniello about surviving the AIDS crisis, and creating art that helps today’s youth to Play Smart and be in the know about AIDS and practicing safer sex by Alina Oswald
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here’s often a process of self-discovery associated with looking at a work of art. The experience can be a fascinating one, especially when we find ourselves surrounded by Carmine Santaniello’s artwork. Stunningly beautiful, dark, edgy, and fearless, it reaches us on a personal, human level, daring us to take that second look within, to rediscover a darker, edgier, more fearless side of our own selves. Carmine Santaniello has created art his entire life. And ever since he can remember, art has been his life. “I started drawing before I could write my name,” he says when I reach him by phone. “I was always artistic,” he adds, “fortunate enough to really make a living as an artist.” Born and raised in New York City, he has pursued an art education, and then career, starting from an early age, attending the High School of Art and Design, and later on the School of Visual Arts and Parsons School of Design. Santaniello’s art appeals to a lot of demographics, traversing genders, ages, ethnicities, and sexual orientations, because the subjects it portrays have human qualities everybody can relate to—they are strong, but also vulnerable; beautiful, and proud; or, as the artist comments on his portraits, they are an edgier representation of people he knows. His portraits invoke innermost human feelings and emotions in an artistic, subtle, yet powerful way. They’ve evolved with time, while preserving their urban and contemporary elements. After all, the artist likes to challenge himself, to keep his work fresh and contemporary.
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Some have names like The Aboriginal Man or The Snake Man. The model posing in Saint Sebastian, for example, may bring out different feelings in different individuals. Its intensity may intrigue viewers. But when I inquire further, I find out that the model is...a face created by the artist. “That’s not a model. I put him together,” Santaniello explains. I find out that Saint Sebastian is part of the artist’s most recent series of portraits, called “Creative Faces.” One of the things the artist likes about this A&U • FEBRUARY 2014