Daniel Santander
I was born in Esplugues de Llobregat (Barcelona) in 1990; I grew up in the village of Sant Vicenç dels Horts between the urban center and the trees of the mountain, spending long days in a small Huesca village called Estada, enjoying the tranquility and serenity of the rocks and rivers of the Somontano (and its good wine).
Since I was a child I had always felt different from the rest. I didn’t share fashions or ideologies, I didn’t even belong to any special group. It was just me, me and my particular way of expressing myself.
When I left school, I threw myself into the world of cinema: I love light, colours, the harmony between dialogue and movement. I started my studies to become a camera operator and a director, I recorded some short films, a documentary and some works that never came out of a hard disk. One day I realized that even though I really liked that world, there was no place for me. I decided to look for a job and save for what I really liked: DRAWING (in capital letters).
After many years working, and with 24 years, I decided to enroll in a school of comics and visual arts in the heart of Barcelona. For 4 years I alternated illustration studies with tattoo drawing and conceptual art, learning from great masters like Claudio Stassi, Enric Rebollo, Juan Sanmiguel or Sagar Fornies, among many others.
In my learning process I started to evolve my way of perceiving and appreciating, and the vision I already had started to grow even more. I learned above all to capture the beauty of body and soul, sexuality and emotional values.
In my work I try to capture all that beauty: a gesture, a look, or nothing.
I am currently working on a personal level creating my own brand (GJOY) of clothing designs, drawing series dedicated to sexuality and social censorship and experimenting with new techniques and styles with painting. My great companion is the graphite pencil, he gave his hand to the watercolors that are for me a sigh of water.
I also like to draw digitally from time to time to discover new ways of creating visually and I even combine it with the traditional. As an added bonus, I also have notions of tattooing illusions.
Exhibitions:
Loving Live, Loving You – email art en Art Atelier Gallery (Algeciras) 2020/Pandemic Showroom-Exposición virtual (Moda EF TV) 2020/(DES)ENAMORARTE (PROUD OF MY PRIDE) 2020/AS I AM+ANIMAL (Bar La Federica) 2020/Bloody Arty (Lady Amaro) 2021/Erostreet Festival (MEAM Barcelona) 2021/Pride Art by Stop Sida (Bar la Federica) 2021