The graduate thesis of Christian Santana Prinz is available here as a .pdf (Spanish only)
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abstract:

This thesis has as its basis an aesthetic assumption one based on reflections around the human body, its forms, situations or characteristics which commonly are disqualified by “ugly”: a body that is distinguished or excelled as it is present at grotesque, in an inverse idealization of beauty, or in other words, an aesthetic beauty directed towards the decay of the flesh.

Of this form, the observation that I propose is an analytical one which deals with the morphology of the body. I am influenced by a visualization of reality that seems perfect, a reproduction influenced by technological means of communication. My paintings are entering the nano-space, micro-cosmos, the opposite side of the external infinite, the tiny thing that has its emphasis in anatomical detail, its matter, the skin that covers it with its crinkles and all its imperfections.

I tried to create a form of presence dealing with situations related to the monitor, the clinical photography, the epidermic frame, with personages and self-portraits which create a visual language that could be interpreted in a mythical, autobiographical sense.       

It interests to me to observe the objects in their directness and to display them together like close-ups and changing the sense of their perception. It’s not the same to see a television close-up of a man with a physical deformation (although it is make-up for a film) than to see a subject with a real deformation in the face walking to our side. I wanted to refer to this example via the own filter of electronic communication that moves us further away from the real objects or the tactile matter, returning them indirect and distant.        

In Chapter 1 of my thesis I establish the thematic and pictorial influences related to the body and the reconstruction of the mediatic image in the search of sensations. In Chapter 2 I expose the ideas that define my work. Concepts like the clinical glance, the temporal aspect of the body, the self-portrait, surgical instruments, the fragmentation and the catharsis. Chapter 3 broaches the technical and formal characteristics of my painting and includes a binnacle with a chronological description of the evolutionary processes in the work (1997 - 2001). In the Conclusion I make some technical definitions related to the elaboration of images and risk a brief reflection about the nature of the pictorial act and its liberating lyricism of sensations. In addition I include in a final section the catalogue of my work.

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