Thinkspace projects is proud to present Uncharted Paths from Mark Jeffrey Santos, aka Mr. S in their main gallery. Following appearances in their Chicago and Dubai group shows last year, this is the artist’s debut solo exhibition in the United States. Santos’s creations show his penchant for adventurous and larger-than-life personas, there’s an instant and comfortable connection that is established once a viewer comes to experience his art.
His new body of work for Uncharted Paths is based on his personal experiences traveling, creating a body of work that evokes the certain feeling of excitement when you find yourself in a new place. “Last year I had the opportunity to travel to South Korea and I was lucky to have witnessed the season of autumn," Santos said. "Seeing it for the first time feels like I'm in a strange world. It was such an otherworldly experience for an ordinary phenomenon.”
Many of Santos’s works revolve around vignettes of a young boy captured in the midst of discovery and exploration of a new realm. A sense of self-awareness is evident in the pensive gaze of his innocent protagonist. It is a look that is filled with profound reflection and contemplation of things to come. Santos uses a variety of Japanese Noh masks to expand this concept — masks that conceal its subject’s emotion opposite the pensive gaze that reveals the true emotions he feels.
Complete with a dreamlike environment and his wide-eyed characters, Santos is not only technically skilled, but also gifted with the vision to construct imaginary, bordering on surreal, scenes. His characters can often be found on an adventure, accompanied by larger-than-life creatures. Such talent in world-building and character design only comes natural for Santos, who did works in video and film before becoming a visual artist.
