Head over to Instagram @jdmalatgallery to learn more about the dynamic work by leading contemporary abstract expressionist @santiagoparra_ with an exclusive Q&A. Santiago Parra was born in Bogotá, Colombia in 1986 and is internationally known as a leading painter in contemporary abstract expressionism. Parra studied Literature at Universidad Nacional de Colombia, followed by an art education at Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá and later at the Academy of Art University to study Fine Arts in San Francisco where he also learnt about Motion Pictures and Television. Informed by a total freedom of movement, Parra’s paintings present his exploration of the potential to free painterly brushwork from the control of the conscious. As Parra sates, in allowing the ‘unconscious to move the brush’, the paintings become a reflection of his psychological status. Using a paint brush made of horse hair, Parra applies black acrylic paint onto blank canvas in a single stroke; the result is a captured moment of his unique creative impulse and instantaneity.
