Joseph Santore

(b.1945, Philadelphis, Pennsylvania; lives New York, New York)

Figurative painter Joseph Santore paints in oil on canvas to create pictorial situations dense with narrative imagery and details. Working from live models, Santore uses introspection, intuition, and his imagination to construct works that reference literature, the artist’s earlier development, and issues in his life.

Originally inspired to paint large-scale non-referential works he called “abstract narratives,” he turned to figuration in the 1970s after traveling to Rome to study the Old Masters. In the early 1980s, he created figurative paintings that were

invigorated by thousands of marks, scratches, and daubs of paint. By using a plethora of studio props, Santore induces a heightened theatricality to his epic works.