who is

Esteban Cardona and Raul Navarro were both born in Mexico City in 1985. They first met in the “Don Coronel Mendoza” orphanage in Mexico City, where they spent their childhood. Their paths separated for several years but crossed again in the “Redemptoris Mater” Seminary of the Archdiocese of Guadalajara Jalisco, where the two teenagers formed a deep, lasting friendship. In the seminary, Esteban and Raul received a doctrinally rigorous Catholic education. During their studies, both revealed marked artistic sensitivity, with a particular passion for religious and sacred art, and took up the study and practice of sculpture.
At the age of 16, Esteban and Raul, by now inseparable friends, made a painful decision to leave the seminary. They returned to Mexico City and opened a workshop of sacred art and religious souvenirs, under the name of “Hermanos Santiago”. After a few years, they decided to abandon the production of religious articles, formed an arts collective, beginning to work and collaborate with other young sculptors and painters. At the outset of the group’s activity, Hermanos Santiago presented their project for a new way of interpreting sacred art, focusing on the “human” aspect of the figures of Jesus and Mary. The concept was finalised in 2005, when Esteban and Raul went on a long trip to Spain and Italy, ultimately deciding to move to Milan, where they still live and work.

 

Divine, too divine

A group of committed artists and artisans gathered around Hermanos Santiago participating in the pursuit of a renewed Catholic iconography from the perspective of a Latino spirit and a profoundly human perception of existence. In their works, Hermanos Santiago have developed a sort of anti-theology, in many respects, basic and instinctive, aimed at celebrating the earthly aspects of the story of Christ. Inspired by the iconographic, spiritual and narrative elements of Christianity, Hermanos Santiago have created a project that embodies a combination of the traditional centuries-old iconography of pain and repentance with Latino warmth and colours and the uncertainties of contemporary man. Inspired by the iconographic, spiritual and narrative elements of Christianity, the Santiago Bros created a project that the Pharisees immediately branded as “provocative” but that comes from an authentic, urgent and profound understanding. Their brand of sacred art conveys centuries of painful and repentant iconographic tradition, combined with Latin warmth and colours and the uncertainties of today’s man.