Felipe Santander’s Gnosis: Unique Textile Art

felipe santander art

Artist Felipe Santander’s Gnosis, a recent exhibition at Chile’s Galería Madhaus, combines brightly colored pieces of synthetic materials, anatomy and symbols that conceptually bridge the inner and outer world of the textile artist.

Felipe Santander’s Gnosis

Felipe Santander's Gnosis

The Gnosis show at the contemporary art gallery in Santiago, Chile, treats the viewer to a look at images extracted from the artist’s psyche: fantasies, dreams, characters and symbols.

textile artist madhaus felipe santander

Executed with expert craftsmanship and candy-colored materials, the pieces appear almost child-like, but a closer look reveals the subterranean ideology of anatomy and the conceptual meaning of his symbology.

leather crafts
Faux leathers, felt and vinyls are layered atop one another and sewn together to create the vibrant pieces.

As an artist Santander has explored the illustrative possibilities of what he calls “textile graphics”, a technique that mixes his two main areas of interest and consists of superimposed and sewn vector illustrations of various materials such as plastic, synthetic leather, vinyl and other fabrics. The influence of his father who worked in the advertising industry and his seamstress mother, add design and visual arts to his background, leading to work that is visually attractive and identifiable as a laborious process. The creating and combining of layers lends to work that is both formal as well as conceptual. Its iconography is derived from pop art, the spontaneity of street art, popular graphics, toys and popular culture.

gnosis felipe santander

The show featured both larger more complex images which incorporate the human figure and reveal the anatomy underneath as well as smaller images of icons.

contemporary art

The larger pieces:
felipe santander leather art
Detail of above:
textile art

contemporary leather art
Details of above:
portraits made with textiles

felipe santander art
Detail of above:felipe santander gnosis exhibit

Gnosis art show
Detail of above:anatomical art

The smaller iconographic pieces:
heart by felipe santander felipe santander on if its hip its here Madhaus gallery Gnosis apple leather crafts contemporary spanish art leather art cadeus

About the artist (loosely translated Spanish from Galeria Madhaus):
He holds a degree in Arts from the University of Chile. He has several individual exhibitions in galleries and places dedicated to contemporary art: HILVANADO, BECH Gallery (2007); RETROVISOR: An Boundary Experience, SAM Room (project awarded by the National Fund for Culture and Arts FONDART 2009); SO BROKEN, Moro Gallery (2010); GREATEST HITS, Cultural Corporation of Recoleta (2011); TEASER, Heavy Metals Gallery (2012). Among the collectives, are: LOW TECH, Santa Rosa Factory (2014); among other. In August of 2009 he is part of the Latin American selection in the biennial of Beijing 798, China, with the work Mystic Force. The same year he founded Editorial Conejo, an experimental publishing group of which he is director. In 2010 he represented Chile in Converse’s global campaign, You’re on.

More examples of his work:
Spanish textile art gnosis at Madhaus galleryunusual art

Galería Madhaus
Vasco de Gama 4639,
Las Condes.

felipe santander gnosis exhibit

Felipe’s work can be found on his Facebook page. as well as on his Instagram account

images in this post courtesy of the artist and Galería Madhaus