Renato Órdenes San Martín
“If a miracle were to happen tonight and we were to wake up tomorrow to a world at peace, we would behold a radiant sunrise, filled with those colors that our gray reality has denied us. After all, true peace isn’t just about stopping the wars among ourselves, but about healing the conflict we’ve unleashed against nature—a conflict that has withered the planet until it has become a dull, empty place. Those rediscovered hues will, at last, be a reflection of freedom, love, and dreams.”
Renato Órdenes San Martín lives and works in Santiago, Chile. He is a visual artist, researcher, and university professor. Renato holds a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies on Thought, Culture, and Society from the University of Valparaíso. His practice focuses on artistic research related to situated artistic thought and contemporary art education. His work combines artistic practice, interdisciplinary research, and university teaching. Renato has organized exhibitions and participated in artist residencies in Europe, North America, and Latin America. He is currently the Director of the School of Fine Arts in Viña del Mar and a professor at the School of Architecture at the University of Valparaíso. Renato believes in artistic research as a system of trans- and interdisciplinary interactions, and in the artwork as a poetic, critical, and reflective practice. Building on this, he forges connections between the fields of the arts, the humanities, new media, and technology to develop new knowledge and methodologies. Renato is drawn to the idea of viewing the world as a dream, a ruinous apparition, a specter that withdraws from the reality he believes he knows and, in its wake, leaves behind viscous traces, footprints, and signs that he attempts to capture and translate.
“A New Dawn,” 2026, watercolor on Esparto paper, 300 gsm (17,5x25cm)