Turnurple, 2023

Mum and Dad in the ute. Used up fireworks found in the dunes and a free abandoned canoe. Possums and cats and other beasts run across powerlines. Could you tell what that thing was? Tiny cumquat trees. Ficodindia with arrow holes. Dust smells. Allergies. Let the house air out. A huntsman lives in the power box. Ariel but no TV. Streetlights from a faraway street. Green afternoon. Neighbor gone to the shops for 100 hours. 100 hours for an ice cream. Seems like a long time? Are you sponsored? Where’d u get your board from. Bats. One day they will have to replace the power-pole. The middles been eaten by termites. Turnurple. Its okay to skate on the neighbor’s driveway because the neighbors are never there. Desiderata. One man dog. Déjà vu. Blood on the Tracks. Caravanserai. Abbey Road. Andrea Bocelli. The Three Amigos. Woody. Holes in the wall fixed by gluing dumpster paintings to the wall with liquid nails. Tapestry. Thickest grass blades. Poisonous white sap. Sandflies.

Nick Santoro (b. 1994) lives and works in Wollongong on Dharawal Country.
Through painting, drawing and installation he examines the mundane and futile details of subcultures, trends and environments that he encounters as an artist/arts worker. His paintings typically mash together disparate references to people and places to make scenes that recount, reflect and celebrate the strange and mundane aspects that are inevitably present in everyday life.
In 2017 he completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at UNSW Art & Design majoring in drawing and printmaking. Since graduating Nick Santoro has exhibited in group and solo shows in NSW at AirSpace Projects, Wellington Street Projects, Good Space, Gaffa, Ambush, Kudos Gallery, Yellow House, Wollongong Art Gallery, Grafton Regional Gallery and Carriageworks for Sydney Contemporary, in Queensland in 2017 with a solo show at Edwina Corlette Gallery in and in Victoria at Melbourne Art Fair in 2022.
Previously Nick Santoro has been a finalist in the Kilgour Prize, Brett Whitley Traveling Art Scholarship, The Churchie National Emerging Art Prize and was commissioned by Runway Journal to design merchandise in 2017. He was a finalist in the Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW in 2020 and has been a finalist in the Sulman Prize in 2019 and 2023.