I sit down with Cuban-American artist Cesar Santos to ask him about his journey as an artist and his thoughts about art in general. We get deep and he teaches me how to philosophize :P

This interview includes a lot of questions, so for your convenience I’ve included a full list of timecodes to the questions below.

This is the final video of our series of collaborations with artists Cesar Santos. Check out our previous videos:

A tour of the sketchbooks of Cesar Santos
A trip to the museum with a master study Sketching the master study from memory, blindfolded!
Go to Cesar Santos' youtube channel to see all his videos from the collaboration.

Topics:

2:23 - Who is Cesar Santos?
2:43 - What is a Magnet School?
3:21 - Which College did you go to?
3:42 - Why did you decide to drop out before you finished?
4:21 - How long did you study at the angel academy?
5:45 - How did you get to that first professional level so quickly?
6:38 - Did you go to a bunch of galleries or pick the one you wanted?
7:31 - What age are you when you got into your first gallery? Fill in the gap since then…
8:47 - Do you experiment with what your art represents
11:04 - Have you been studying with anybody?
12:24 - How did you study from the paintings at the museum?
14:14 - Why Cesar Santos has so many finished paintings in his sketchbook
15:37 - Did you study from books at all or go to museums? Were there any instructional books?
16:55 - What do you do today?
19:08 - How do you go against the grain of what other artists want from you?
19:59 - Are you talking about classically trained artists vs the artists that are doing modern stuff?
22:44 - Books and videos are an aspect of learning how to draw
23:34 - Did your art teachers ever go and paint on your paintings?
23:51 - Is that because that’s the best way actually learn it or because they didn’t want their style to influence your art?
24:13 - How many students were in a class?
25:17 - How long are the teacher critiques?
26:02 - Did the students critique you at all?
26:30 - How the Angel Academy critiques students now
27:10 - Is it good or bad that teachers fix their student’s mistakes by drawing on a student’s work?
30:00 When you were studying did you start painting early on and then draw or vice versa
32:16 - Stan’s own experience
33:56 - Cesar gives advice on how to learn art
34:35 - Stan and Cesar talk about 21 under 31 awards
35:42 - What do you think about art philosophy
36:20 - Instagram story (What’s the ultimate truth?)
39:11 - The importance of Syncretism
40:56 - Is there such a thing as cheating?
43:53 - Cesar’s tattoos
48:14 - Wrap it up time
48:32 - Favorite artist?
48:45 - Favorite artist you’ve studied
48:48 - Favorite subject to draw or paint
48:52 - Favorite Book
49:00 Is there a painting you’ve done that’s particularly memorable or important
49:29 Out of all the paintings you’ve sold is there one you wish you could get back
49:49 - What medium do you want to learn
51:21 - What question do you hope I ask you?
51:39 - What are you working on now and what can people expect to see from you in the future?
52:09 - Where do you see your art going in the next 10 years
53:16 - Where you can find Cesar Santos