Santiago Caruso
Exploring the weird art of Santiago Caruso
The following text is an interview with Argentine artist and illustrator Santiago Caruso conducted by David Davis for 'Wierd Fiction Review'
Santiago Caruso
DAVID DAVIS
While
you may not recognize his name, chances are that if you’ve read weird
fiction, you’ve seen his artwork. Argentine visual artist Santiago
Caruso fuses a unique combination of everything from surrealism to the fantastique into
his art.
He’s created countless covers for weird fiction books for
everything from Tartarus Press to the recently released Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Volume One.
We talked to Caruso about what inspires his art, how he makes it, and more.
DAVIS
Your art is very distinct and easy to identify. It’s an interesting
combination that ranges from Gothic to surreal to fantastical. How do
you tend to describe your style?
CARUSO
Today, I would define myself as a Symbolist, who recreates the
deformation of reality that the human being perceives — i.e. the phantom of
conventional objects — to go deeper into them with a new kind of
perception.
I try to summon a poetic phantom that supplies a wider
vision of the human, contemplating the beautiful, the frightening, the
repressed or forgotten in the shadows, the impossible.
With this concept of depiction, I try to utilize Gothic symbolism as a crystallized view of the world in many respects.
With this concept of depiction, I try to utilize Gothic symbolism as a crystallized view of the world in many respects.
I combine religion, politics, and commonplace things to reveal another vision of the world with regard to the unconscious, the damned ghosts we’ve buried, and many other aspects of history and philosophy.
DAVIS
How did you become an artist? What artists or artworks have influenced your work?
CARUSO
From a very early age, I remember building houses, ships, and other
stuff with boxes or chairs and playing in them with toys; inventing
stories is something I’ve always done since then.
Drawings and music
were also present since the first days of my childhood. I copied comic
strips such as Patoruzú, Condorito and Afanancio. I also
made caricatures of people and by chance, I attended classes with
a teacher who did comics when I was 14 years old.
Music was always there, in addition, influencing my artwork.
Music was always there, in addition, influencing my artwork.
Later, at 19, I made
illustration my medium of expression. I started making children’s
illustrations in books for school. Later, under the influence of William
Blake and other Symbolists, such as Max Klinger, Alfred Kubin, and
Odilon Redon, my style underwent a change in order to be the same tone
of the themes I saw in their images.
Alfred Kubin
The questions of evil, sin, love,
memory and beauty, are subjects that were inspiring to me, so the
narrative path I took to illustrate weird fiction turned later from the anecdotal allegory into poetry in order to build a narrative and not
just a moment in the story.
I do oscillate between those languages,
depending on the text and how I want to express the content. These days,
I am writing and I believe those scripts can be songs. I don’t know,
but maybe I will do something with music too.
DAVIS
You've done art for a number of weird fiction books like The King in the Golden Mask and Year’s Best Weird Fiction. Do you read weird fiction?
CARUSO
Yes, I do. My artwork is closely related with fantastic literature of the XIX century and philosophy. I am between Romanticism and psychology, poetry and skepticism.
I am related to the word, or
I should say, to language. I believe I construct my images as if I were
writing them. The final view of it must communicate in one glance the
general feeling and idea, but after that, you can read the image almost
as a text, so it must be built with the same rules of grammar if you
want to express yourself clearly.
DAVIS
Are there authors or poets have inspired you? Are there any particular books, literature, poems that have inspired your works?
CARUSO
One of the special moments of change in my life was when I read the
writings of William Blake and Charles Baudelaire. The latter is almost
like a father to my style. I could say I am always returning to him as
a prodigal son.
I’ve also started reading Poe, Lovecraft, Meyrink, and
many others but the particular view of Marcel Schwob is the perfect
mirror I’ve found for my visual narrative.
The French Decadent movement is the weird literature I love the most, specifically À rebours (Against Nature) by J. K. Huysmans.
The French Decadent movement is the weird literature I love the most, specifically À rebours (Against Nature) by J. K. Huysmans.
As a project next year, I have the hard task of undertaking Les chants de Maldoror, but
I will enjoy the challenge. The strange tone and eclectic mood of the
writings of Pascal Quignard is another thing I find inspiring.
I try to express this in the change from narrative to visual poetry I do these days. However, the tone of my images is also somewhat rooted in Eastern European taste. It’s quite a mysterious link since I didn’t see any of their products until some time after I changed the way I depict the world, transitioning from the grotesque to classic figuration between 2004 and 2005.
DAVIS
What sorts of media do you use? Can you tell us about your process of painting?
CARUSO
I usually
use ink and watercolors. The ink is applied over a plastered cardboard
and is later scratched with a cutter to depict the lighting. There is no
sketch, so I work slowly, using the shape of spots of ink from the
base, to construct my figures in there, in the shadows.
Recently,
to save time, I returned to tempera and acrylics images with a textural
mood in a dark tone like my other scratched art. I want to paint again
in oils, after almost ten years. I’ll see if I find the time for it.
DAVIS
In Argentina, are there other visual artists, poets, authors who are pursuing the same sort of art and style as you?
CARUSO
Yes, while exploring art, I’ve found others like Guillermo Roux, Quique
Alcatena, and Federico Parolo, who present a world of strangeness and
symbolisms.
If I go far enough in the past, I’ve also enjoyed the engravings of Víctor Delhez, a Belgian-born artist, raised in Argentina since his youth, who has illustrated Lord Dunsany, Charles Baudelaire, and Saint John’s Apocalypse.
In writing, I’ll mention María Negroni and
Ángel Olgoso, who give a poetic treatment of the fantastique. Lastly,
I made some illustrations for a book of Olgoso, which is still looking
for a publisher.
DAVIS
What do you consider as some of your best pieces?
CARUSO
Time will tell, but I’ll mention Portrait of Crime and Wunderkammer. Anyway, the best painting is the one I haven’t done yet!
DAVID DAVIS
Footnote
Footnote
Please note that I have reformatted this article and added my own selection of images.
To see the original interview, please click on the link below:
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