Boston Painter Carlos Santiago Transforms Supermarket Flowers into Fine Art

This article is from the spring 2025 issue of Boston Home. Sign up here to receive a subscription.

Carlos Santiago’s still lifes don’t seem still at all—his flower-filled canvases practically pulse with energy. Working in his living room in Jamaica Plain, he arranges supermarket bouquets, secondhand vases, and silk flowers from thrift stores into dynamic tableaux, playing with shadows and refracted light. The resulting compositions juxtapose graphic lines with swirling color and zigzag between realism and abstraction. “Some shapes are fully finished, and some are very loose and open to the imagination,” he says.

Santiago has zigzagged in his own career. He grew up in Puerto Rico, drawing whatever caught his attention. “We didn’t have the resources to buy paint, but there was always a piece of paper and pencil lying around,” he says. Santiago went on to study fashion design and worked for a decade in that “amazing and crazy” industry in New York. When he needed a change, he spent a summer in Provincetown—“an incredible place for people who need to find themselves”—and decided to pursue new paths in beauty and art. After hairdressing school and a move to Boston, Santiago started working as a hairstylist and taking painting classes. Flowers became a favorite subject, and when he found a favorite instructor in painter Catherine Kehoe, he repeated her class at MassArt half a dozen times. “She’d tell people, ‘If I don’t show up to class, don’t worry; Carlos is here. He’ll be able to conduct the class without me,’” he recalls with a laugh.

Today, Santiago cuts and colors by day and paints nights and weekends, exploring new techniques and drawing inspiration from favorite artists—Matisse, Alice Neel, Janet Fish. “I always go back to their work because I love how they use color and shapes,” he says. Santiago’s most recent body of work was shaped by another influence: his mom, who offered feedback on pieces in progress. “She’s my hardest critic,” he says. “I love it because I know she’s not being harsh on me; she’s just trying to understand what I’m doing.”

Courtesy the artist

Dahlia I, oil on canvas, $1,250, carlossantiagoart.com.

Courtesy

Courtesy the artist

First published in the print edition of Boston Home’s Spring 2025 issue, with the headline, “Garden Variety.”