DAVID SANTIAGO, also known as St. Jame, paints beautiful women. Often nude and somewhat sensual, the idealized figures in his murals and large-scale paintings call to mind anime and vintage pinup art while evoking a sense of mysticism. “They’re inspired by the colors in the Southwestern landscape,” he says, pointing to the tones of the woman in Prickly, a mural in Albuquerque’s Nob Hill neighborhood. “If you look at the gradient in her skin tone, you’re looking at the night sky.” Santiago garnered attention in 2015 for his Tractor Brewing Company beer can labels, and the 35-year-old Albuquerque artist has had quite a run recently, winning Best of Show at the Contemporary Hispanic Market in Santa Fe last year; designing a reading nook sculpture, Paige, at the Albuquerque Public Library; and creating the opening match flag for the New Mexico United. “It’s the United shield, but it’s the shape of a face, like a face in a crowd,” he says. “Her freckles are star constellations.”

My mother taught kindergarten in Tijeras. We lived in Albuquerque, but we went to school up there. 

I got to grow up with the mountain kids.   

My dad’s an artist. He gave me figure drawing books where you would create these sort of wire-frame forms of bubbles and gestures, and you slowly start to connect the lines.

I would lose myself in creating and making stuff, getting fascinated by the way things worked.

Me and my brother were really into music. He’s a drummer and I played trumpet. He teaches music now. 

If I work on something on paper and don’t like it, even if you erase it, you can still see it.  

I fell in love with the texture that came through on wood. If I don’t like something, I can sand it off. 

A lot of people ask if I use an airbrush because of the way things are blended out. I use my hands. 

If you come up really close, you can see the grain of the wood absorbing the charcoal. 

I’ll do a photo shoot with models for a bunch of references. I don’t draw them in the moment. 

I need time to work it.

It’s healthy to have your studio away from your house, to be not so close to the kitchen.

The woman [in Prickly] is kind of like Mother Nature. She hasn’t fallen on the cactus. 

She’s one with the cactus. 

You paint big, and you want to keep going. 

Winning Best of Show at the Contemporary Hispanic Market was an honor for me as someone who’s always felt a little out- side the box of traditional art here in New Mexico. 

It affirmed that making my own path was the right choice for me. 

I want to keep developing. I think my style always comes through, but how can I change the medium up a little bit?

I’m trying to get more comfortable with being loose. I can stay in one lane for too long.

I was doing some eyelashes with a sharp charcoal pencil. It was so precise. And then I got this oil stick, and it’s like, Who says eyelashes can’t just be one gesture? 

A mural takes up space. It’s going to be a part of people’s lives, part of the story of this area.

Up close, everything is all over the place. When you step back, it comes together. 

See David Santiago at the Contemporary Hispanic Market in Santa Fe, July 26–27; follow his work at stjameart.com and on Instagram (@stjame).