Meet Helmo Santos | Visual Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Helmo Santos and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Helmo, how do you think about risk?
My process of becoming an artist was and is motivated by more personal issues than a formal business process. I have ADHD and I was living a life that I didn’t feel like my own, I was a nomad for most of my life, so I decided to try to change, settle down and live in a place, well…for 9 years I lived in a deep depression. I had a good job, romantic relationships, but still none of it seemed to me. It was too distressing, because I didn’t feel good about anything I had. This is very common with people with this disorder. So, I isolated myself at home for 2 months, I didn’t know what to do with my life, nor what I really wanted for myself, it was an acute existential crisis and I even thought about suicide. In this process, I meditated, wrote a lot and little by little the intention of making art was sprouting inside me. As if I was emptying myself of the life I had before and it was in this emptiness that I began to understand myself better. I started to learn watercolor, theories and art history, there I discovered what my “hyperfocus” would be. Art was what connected all the broken dimensions of who I was, until then. I had nothing when I started, I went to live in a hostel and all my possessions were in 2 suitcases, but somehow… None of that mattered, I knew that this was the path I wanted to dedicate myself to, because it was like all the challenges and hardships were worth it. With art, the most diverse problems gain meaning in my life, they are part of a path for me to become a better person, a happier and more fulfilled human being as well. My career is still about taking risks, because I understand that I’m building a career in a professional segment that doesn’t have a structured form. I know it’s a very radical process, I had committed myself to making a living from art while still learning everything. If I couldn’t sell any paintings, I didn’t have food, I wouldn’t have a place to live, the pressure was and still is absurd, but that honestly motivates me, gives me a purpose. I think the big turning point in my life, what made me find the strength to make the decisions I really wanted for myself, is to be aware that we will always have problems and difficulties regardless of what we do and to know how to choose which problems and difficulties you are willing to face. facing is fundamental, so when you make choices, don’t just think about the benefits of success, but have all the challenges along the way as a conscious choice.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I’ve made art the center of my life, and the more I’ve given away to dedicate myself to this path, the more fulfilled I feel. I think the best part of it all is being able to bring art into my personal life, as I think about the world from my personal experiences. The world I paint is a visual manifestation of my experience of the world, of this moment in which we live. My landscapes are bright, vibrant places, but also empty, desolate. The look of estrangement and inadaptation that ADHD filters between me and the world, along with this nomadic life, my world ends up being filled by extremely ephemeral exchanges and coexistence. At the same time, living in a world in constant movement, makes the city or region I always move to a place to discover. For this ephemerality I also chose watercolor, with its texture and light effects, the particularity that water imbues on paper through ink is also a metaphor for a perception of accelerated, liquid time. Well, the path is still very difficult, but… I never asked for it to be easy, to make a living from art the way I do, I knew I needed to be prepared for it.
I never know what the challenges are going to be, from going too long without selling, to if I suffer a city, anything is possible and it will impact my life. The point is that in this world I feel motivated to always seek to be my best version. I can’t control everything, nobody can, what art taught me is to work the best of me from how reality shows itself to me. In watercolor, I learned to let go of the need for control, I paint together with the water, you know? It’s like a dance. Like the world, water never exactly matches our wishes, but it always reacts, interacts with it, and from that, we create reality. With art I find something valuable and luminous in myself, and that has helped me get through the darkest nights of my life. That’s what I try to pass on to people too. In this dual world, with its inexorable beauties and sufferings, it is possible to seek to harmonize all this in a broader panorama. I think that art is able to align us with the world. I don’t think there is a formal idea of ​​what I want people to see in my art, what I’m looking for is that from my art they look at their own worlds, that they allow themselves to feel, think and understand that painting they observe. from its own existential phenomenon.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Ah, this is very interesting, because yes, my career is only possible because it is a collective construction. After I started painting, I returned to the nomadic life and had the opportunity to meet all kinds of people. Through my work this has become a reality and helps to complete this ideal of being an artist. Through art I connect with unknown people from all over the world, with different realities and worlds, and this expands me a lot too, producing art is an exchange on several levels. There is nothing predictable, and everything seems to be possible, within infinite realities, like the many people who will come here on the site and read this interview and many others. This is connecting people in what is most human about them, you know? Hmm… I think then that the most appropriate thing is to dedicate this shotout to every human being who seeks more depth in their relationships, all those who open up and focus on a way of being and acting that goes against the great, liquid social trends and sometimes so banal. To all those who are willing to swim against the current.

Website: https://www.deviantart.com/helmosantos

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/helmogsantos/