Eighteen years ago, I wrote, “Roseta Santiago paints surrounded by the spirit of generations of other artists. Her collections of fine art, artifacts and pottery from around the world and across centuries inspire her not only because they are inherently beautiful but because they manifest the hearts and hands that made them.”
Today, several homes and studios later, she is surrounded by the pueblo pots and artifacts she began painting and, in her life, by the Native American models who have become her inspiration and mutually impactful friends.
Earthsong Symphony, oil, 24 x 36 in.
On May 22 and 23, Legacy Gallery of Santa Fe, New Mexico, will present Alchemy – A Weekend with Roseta Santiago. Cyndi Hall, the gallery’s general manager, says the weekend “will feature a range of new works in multiple sizes, including a special collection of intimate 12-by-12-inch paintings created specifically for the exhibition.”
She continues, “Roseta Santiago’s path to painting has been shaped by a lifetime of curiosity, creativity and reinvention. Now painting daily from her studio in Santa Fe, Santiago brings together decades of life experience into work that reflects both personal discovery and a fascination with the cultures and objects that connect us. Alchemyspeaks to the idea of transformation—how experience, knowledge and reflection can change the way we see the world.
Indian Stories, oil, 60 x 36 in.
“Santiago’s path to painting has been anything but conventional. Before fully committing to fine art, she built a career across multiple creative disciplines—from design and advertising to painting monumental wildlife murals across the country,” Hall says. “Each chapter added to the visual language she brings to the canvas today. These experiences, combined with her rich cultural heritage and lifelong fascination with mystery and symbolism, inform paintings that feel both personal and universal.”
Beyond the Horizon, oil, 30 x 60 in. Private Collection.
The artist moved to Santa Fe in 2000. “I was just teaching myself how to paint when I moved here,” she says. “So I thought of shapes and picked pots. I studied how they dig the clay and who was making pots over time and studied their designs. And I thought, well, I have to title all these pot paintings. How do I do that? So, I just pictured the makers making beautiful work out of clay, making their own paints and painting with yucca root brushes. I thought, this is like a song. That’s why I came up with Earth Song for the pot paintings, because if the Earth could sing, it would probably sing about these beautiful pots. That’s me personifying the Earth being part of the religious experience of Native people—Mother Earth, Father, Son. Everything has a soul. I just thought about the beauty that goes into the pots and the fact that you can actually put your hands in the top and feel the potters’ fingerprints. There’s DNA there, too. There’s the maker’s spirit.
A Day in Taos, oil, 40 x 40 in. Private Collection.
“So I started with pots, something I thought I could master and teach myself. My book, Conversations in Paint Language: The Art of Roseta Santiago, is all about objects and vessels and pots and materials in the background…Then, one day, I decided my biggest fear was the figure. How in the world could I paint the figure? Painting a pot is important. It’s imbued with the maker. It’s a reminder of the person. But when you paint a person, it’s actually them. They’re alive. They are somebody that impacted you in some way. I kept reflecting back to myself and how I grew up and how I left home and how everybody suffers something. So, I look for that unique thing about the person. I wondered what my motivation was. Was it a challenge or did I want to paint people?
Brave Rock, oil, 48 x 48 in.
“Both, for sure. I thought the figure was the hardest thing to paint—until I started painting landscapes! I find people fascinating because I grew up not being able to relate to people. Psychologically, I thought I was ugly and not important. My father was very strict. He didn’t let me interface with other people. He didn’t want me to get in trouble. He was protecting me. And by doing that, I didn’t talk to people. I didn’t socialize. I wasn’t allowed to go out.”
Her meeting the challenges of life and of her chosen profession has made her a compassionate and empathetic person and an artist who finds and presents the inherent beauty in created objects and every person.
Taos Vision, oil, 40 x 30 in.
She is fond of quoting the late Irish poet and philosopher John O’Donahue who wrote in his book Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, “Beauty does not linger, it only visits. Yet beauty’s visitation affects us and invites us into its rhythm, it calls us to feel, think, and act beautifully in the world: to create and live a life that awakens the Beautiful.”
She sees the beauty within the beautiful people she paints. One of her favorite models is Deryle James Lujan of Taos Pueblo who was a Hollywood stuntman until a horse fell on him causing severe injuries. He lives in the Taos foothills with a few horses, dogs and cats, but with no running water or electricity. “We took some building materials up there in the fall to make a structure in the spring.”
She continues, “Another of my earliest Native subjects, along with Deryle, is the Diné model Ty Harris. I’m featuring them now, 20 years later as we three have evolved. Alchemy, to me, is a transitional word, describing change—the change in me as a storyteller, having decided, in 1999, to move to Santa Fe to realize my dream of making art—and making a career of my big dream… I want people to experience the incredible people and stories I have experienced—their strengths, lifestyle and beauty…as well as their connection to their history.”
Roseta Santiago in her studio working on Southwest Treasures.
When Roseta photographs her models, she is sometimes accompanied by Phil Velasquez, a former Chicago Tribune photographer, and his wife Robin Daughtridge, former associate managing editor at the paper. Velasquez uses high-resolution digital cameras that allow him to record more detailed images.
Velasquez recently photographed Deryle Lujan at the Couse-Sharp Historic Site in Taos.
Santiago explains, “I paint the people of the Southwest that I know and I want people to experience their beauty ‘personally’ in the reality of living their daily lives—rather than romanticized or in a fairy tale.” —
Alchemy – A Weekend with Roseta Santiago
May 22-23, 2026
Legacy Gallery
225 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501
(505) 986-9833, www.legacygallery.com
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