In the Artist-Spotlight: Santiago Cañón-Valencia

                         

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you? What do you do?

My name is Santiago Cañón-Valencia, and I am a cellist from Colombia. I'm currently based in Vienna, but most of the time I am traveling for concerts!

I'm primarily a professional cellist, but I also compose and paint.

How did you get started with art?

It came from my family - my grandfather and two of my uncles are professional painters, so I grew up surrounded by art. I also took a few lessons from them when I was very young and kept drawing and painting always.

How did you find your style?

For me, style comes mostly from references... not just painters or specific works, but also architecture, literature and most importantly for me, music.

It's crucial for me to have music on while I paint, I take music as a kind of blueprint for any artwork I make and also trust my taste.

What would you say is your favorite project that you've done?

In 2023, I did a big concert in my hometown (Bogotá) which served as the launch of my latest record titled "Ascenso" ("Ascent" in English).

The record is made up of 5 pieces of music, all written for cello solo and mostly written by Colombian composers - including one work being written by me.

A few months before the concert, I worked on 5 different paintings (each inspired by one of the pieces in the record) which were projected in the hall and used for the stage design for the concert

Do you have any big aspirations you're working towards with your artwork? And if so, do you mind sharing?

I am mostly working on ways in which my music side and my painting side can come together in projects like the one I mentioned above these are big projects so they definitely feel ambitious! I'll present a project like this again in November this year in Mexico, so I am very much looking forward to that

I'd also love to do a mural eventually.

Tell us a little bit about the art pieces.

The small paintings (set of 3) are meant to be a little tryptich. They're very much inspired in Francis Bacon's style and composition, although nothing in them is figurative as I mostly work with abstraction.
Along with the Bacon inspiration, there are also elements that allude to urban landscapes (concrete, tagging the inevitable dirtyness and roughness of a non-descript big city).
The medium sized work is meant to contrast the urban tryptich, it isn't necessarily a landscape of nature, but it does have an inevitable bucolic feel to it. Some people that have seen in feel it's somewhat unsettling, others find it calming...

What's your relationship with coffee?

I am Colombian, I run on coffee.