Eric Manuel Santoscoy-Mckillip
Born in El Paso, Texas, 1989
Lives in Brooklyn, New York
ericmanuelsantoscoymckillip@gmail.com
C/V
Moving between painting and sculpture, my work is an examination of place and identity through the use of color, symbols, space, and textures by reclaiming what has already been reclaimed. The transitions between these elements shift, overlap and blur to reflect the physical and metal in-between space of the US-Mexico borderland, the continually changing complex identities and histories of my own and of the geographic region. My practice is a tool to reassess the narratives told to be true or that I have pieced together and those that have been passed on by oral, familial and communal histories. I use it to connect to people and places I no longer can and reflect on imagery through the time spent with it. Building a lexicon through different techniques, like making and using stucco as both a texture and protectant or applying layers of paint to abstract the underlying form, I pay respect to the lineage of the painting (i.e. sand painting, sign painting, car painting, murals, landscape) in the southwest and US/Mexico border culture while using a both minimal/maximal language to isolate, bring specificity and focus on this place that is fleeting, shifting and changing.