Rafael Santos

I’m 20 years old and i’m on the 2nd year of Illustration and Comics at Ar.Co – Centro de Arte e Comunicação Visual in Lisbon.

I went to Escola Artística António Arroio in Lisbon between 2013 and 2016 with the course of Audiovisual Communication (Cinema and Video). I participated in some exhibitions in Portugal, such as “TERRAMOTO” in Lisbon and “OPEN DAY 8.0” in Barreiro.

I also play in my band called Moon Preachers and we’re currently on tour presenting our first album “A Free Spirit Death”. Besides this, I do posters for concerts mainly but also for exhibitions and parties.

I believe that my work is completely adequate for this edition of the magazine. The unknown, the strangely familiar (The uncanny), coincidences, good and evil, family issues, sacrifice, rock and roll and sexuality as the main topics for my work.

I’m attracted by a child-like, mystic view of the world and a primitive way of doing things, choosing and making decisions.

Since I was a little boy, I wanted to create a fictional world, the more realistic I could. With no ideas, where doubts are instantly solved by doing something, not always the right thing. Where alchemy, mysticism, longevity, transformation, fear and spirituality are not strange at all and all know each other.

Alchemy is transformation, mutation, changing, history and symbology, and my work and the way I perceive it is exactly the same, change the imaginary into something real.