‘An abstract painter conveys energy’
Rufina Santana sees beyond Lanzarote’s lava. Through her artist’s eye, the landscape’s shapes, textures and colours spring to life. Her future is still hers to paint, with everything left to create, starting with a retrospective of her work planned for 2027.
After many years in Lanzarote, you seem to find colours in the lava that most people never see.
Artists explore what normally remains unseen. Walking around Lanzarote, I see creativity, textures and forms emerge from within the lava. Like heat, like hues. It is a form of positive destruction, destroying in order to create a new reality. Destruction is inherent in creation itself.
Landscapes, gardens, the ocean and paradise are recurring themes in your work. Has your artistic vision evolved?
Our way of seeing evolves as we ourselves do, and as the island does. In an artist’s mind’s eye, everything is still to be created. At first, all I saw was the landscape. Now my perspective is more cultivated, broader and more complex. An abstract painter conveys energy, from its densest expression in brushes, canvases and pigments to its finest in thoughts and poetry. Beauty is the sum of both.
What happens between what you see and what finally appears on the canvas?
It is a process of idea, action and consequence. You try to capture the idea, relate it to your life and thinking, then immerse it in your creative universe. The result must remain coherent with your work and life.
What have you yet to show us about Lanzarote?
Its future. In art, we always try to look beyond our own time, even if time ultimately overtakes us.
Are you preparing a new exhibition?
Now it is time to bring together fifty years of painting, beginning with my first solo exhibition in Gran Canaria in 1976. I am working on a retrospective that I hope will see the light of day in 2027. A catalogue will be published to accompany it. I also plan to write my memoirs. I have plenty of memories, many of them very funny, although for now I am still busy making them. (Laughs.)
What dreams have you yet to dream?
Since we have little control over our dreams, I am open to letting them in and, if possible, seeing them come true.
