Shoutout Sunday: Nelson Santiago
Sunday Shoutout is our new series profiling a creative we admire and have worked with. We want to showcase the vibrant talent we have been fortunate to work and partner with, in all mediums. Everyone from artists and designers, musicians and rappers, writers to photographers, we want to introduce you to new creatives in The Bronx. This week meet Bronx illustrator, artist and creative Nelson Host Santiago.
Nelson Host Santiago
Nelson Host Santiago is a Nuyorican artist from The Bronx creating pieces inspired by the plight and history of Puerto Rico, gentrification in The Bronx, and his decades long art career.
Nelson Host Santiago (Instagram: @nelson_host_santiago) is an artist, known most for his political pieces, from The Bronx. Nelson began his career, which has spanned two decades, as a street artist known for his Wild Style street bombings under the tag “Host One.” Nelson was always creative, even from a young age, and began expressing. himself on canvas. His work is inspired by growing up in The Bronx, his love of comic books, hip-hop culture, and his proud Puerto Rican heritage. Many of his pieces are mixed medium (acrylic and markers on canvas) expressions of political themes: colonization, Puerto Rican history, gentrification in The Bronx, the COVID pandemic and response, and economics.
Nelson’s artwork incorporates many political themes and pulls from his experiences in The Bronx, and his Puerto Rican roots.
In 2018, he painted a piece on a float in the NYC Puerto Rican Day Parade.
Nelson x The Bronx Brand
In 2016, we partnered with Nelson and brought two of his designs onto our platform as posters. Nelson was one of the first artists we partnered with. His pieces, White Elephant and Lego Poster, are available for purchase as high-quality prints on archival 264 gsm paper.
