‘It’s to make you feel included’: A Delaware artist’s new exhibit asks those to reflect on identity, family and belonging

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Before Delaware artist Juan Santos has visitors look at a single painting in his latest exhibit, he asks patrons to do something else first.

He requests that they open the exhibit pamphlet, scan a QR code and listen to a recorded monologue.

Only then, Santos said, do the nearly 20 paintings, drawings and mixed-media works that surround them begin to tell the story they were meant to tell.

“Becoming,” Santos’ solo exhibition, is on display through July 31 at the Delaware Division of the Arts’ Mezzanine Gallery inside the Carvel State Office Building in downtown Wilmington. The exhibit explores identity, family, memory and belonging. Admission is free and open to the public.

“The title, ‘Becoming,’ came about me trying to find a way how I can relate to others,” Santos said. “I think the artists, we are here to somehow either explore some of the things that have happened to us or some of the things that are happening to a lot of other people. As someone who migrated from the Dominican Republic to a culture that I was not aware of, or even know that I was meant to be curious about, I had to really pivot and I had to really become open and curious about the space around me.”

Painting a life story

Among the nearly 20 works on display, one item serves as the exhibit’s emotional anchor and titular piece.

Before creating it, Santos began researching himself. He spoke with family members and childhood friends, asking who he was as a child and why he had always been so curious.

“I wanted to be able to understand why I was in the spaces that my parents put me in,” he said.

Those conversations revealed a young boy who wanted to impress others and meet expectations.

“It really seemed like I wanted to be a good kid. I wanted to impress others and showcase that I can achieve anything [in] anywhere you will put me,” he said. “Until then, I noticed that all these different avenues that people wanted me to be, they never really fit well with me. I felt very uncomfortable. I felt very out of place.

“I wanted to express my imperfection that even though I can’t meet people’s expectations, I could eventually create something that meant to me that I could reach [expectations] for [myself].”

The finished piece features a younger version of Santos beneath a halo, surrounded by thousands of hand-drawn circles.

“I have a halo around the piece to showcase that the soul [is] almost like an angel … that before me he was out there. He was showing out for us,” Santos said. “And the circles are embodiments of emotions. When you look at [them], there’s so many little things [that] are happening. But if you really focus, you can see so much beyond that.”

Even the materials he used for this depiction tell part of the story.

“These materials were, back then, what I really had when I was growing up,” he noted, referring to markers and pens.

A unique part of his exhibit is that each piece was created during different chapters of his life. Santos said he didn’t realize until preparing the exhibition that they all belonged together.

“All these pieces were made at different times,” he said. “And when I put them together, it literally tells my whole story … I actually was making pieces that [were] meant to be telling a story. When you have the monologue [from the pamphlet], when you have the flow and you finish with my mom’s piece — and her favorite flowers are sunflowers — it all just comes together.”

A space for healing

As visitors move through the exhibit, Santos takes them through his childhood memories in the Dominican Republic, moments of grief, family traditions and, eventually, one of the most defining chapters of his life.

The exhibit’s emotional center stems from coming out to his parents in 2014.

“My family comes from a Catholic background and they still practice,” Santos said. “We went through some discomfort, but through time my family really showed up to say, ‘We might not understand exactly where you’re at, but we’re still going to accept you and love you.’”

Rather than focusing on the hardship, Santos says “Becoming” became a way of honoring the people who gave him the confidence to keep growing.

“My dad and my mom have definitely shown me how love is supposed to feel,” he said. “I think that these characteristics within the exhibition really are a ‘thank you’ to my parents because without them, I really wouldn’t know how this world really is coming about.”

That sense of belonging became the foundation for the exhibition itself.

“I created a space to offer someone else [who] maybe did not feel [a sense of] belonging,” he said. “A lot of times we don’t feel like we belong because we have a lot of differences within ourselves and a lot of times we don’t want to talk about them. So in the space that I curated with all the pieces, it’s to make you feel included.”

Today, Santos is pursuing a psychology degree with the goal of becoming an art therapist, hoping to create spaces where others can safely explore their own emotions and experiences.

Whether visitors spend a few minutes or an hour inside the gallery, Santos hopes they leave with something more than an appreciation for the artwork.

“I hope that they ask themselves more questions,” he said. “And that they can ask the same questions to the people that they say they love, because maybe we don’t really know each other that much.”