SANTOS CHAVEZ
The story of Santos Chávez, a man from Araucanía who showed the world his land and its people through beautiful visual poetry
Santos Chávez's work is of a beauty that impacts on its power of synthesis, on its strength to communicate from the simple. And not only from an aesthetic point of view, but also from its theme; the primary life of the human being, its connection with the earth, with the wind, with the moon and the sun. He is an artist who works with the pristine in every way. His iconography refers to his childhood in the rural world, a life that he will never experience again, but that he will transform into visual poetry in each of his works. Santos Chávez traveled the world, lived in large cities like Berlin in the GDR, but none of this affected his work, which continued to imagine and poeticize his peasant childhood in the land of Arauco.
Curiously, Santos was not raised under the Mapuche culture, his mother Flora Alister Carinao, a peasant and ceramicist, did not allow it. But his belonging to this ethnic group and to his land, marked him all his life. He felt his blood on his face, in his parsimony and in his "dark" as he said. He wanted to preserve the memory of his people, thus, together with his bucolic pieces, he constantly introduces the "men of the earth", with brown and inscrutable faces . «I try to express the race, the little that we have left of American. I am an Araucanian who tries to universalize the sentiment of simple people. Earth and man form one entity ». And certainly Chávez managed in his life to show the world his little corner, exhibiting throughout his life in various cities in Europe and the United States. From Araucanía to the world; Let's see how this incredible story started.
Santos' work is totally original. He admired Marc Chagall, who was a pastor like him, also Dürer, whose engravings he will see live during his stay in Germany. But in general, it could be said that it is one of those lights in the art world, that shine alone in the creative universe, that do not resemble anyone and that have not been influenced by anyone other than their own experiences. Furthermore, Santos also gave his technique a tinge of originality. Despite venturing into various engraving processes such as lithography, etching or drawing, it was with woodcut that he found comfort with the medium. For a man from the south, from the forest, wood becomes another part of his work and he certainly completes it. Chávez did not buy the wood, he used pieces of coihue and araucaria that he found. In them he carved his beautiful figures, like a sculpture, to later apply the ink. Then he superimposed the paper, and instead of using a press he used a simple wooden spoon, giving it uneven pressure that brought it closer to the craft. I never made more than 50 versions of a plate, all of them slightly different.
His childhood friend said that the artist could be committed but not the art, "my work is not realism, it is harmony, it is meaning, it is symbolism and poetry."
His great friend Elicura Chihauilaf said that he is a "poet of wood." From his deep humility and exacerbated rigor this man sought to grasp and discover life. "I can't say that I know everything, that's why I keep working, suffering and searching to find that indescribable thing that one seeks ..."
*This text was taken from katarimag.com/santos-chavez-grabador-mapuche/ and translated from Google's auto-translate feature.