​Education:
2019 - 2021: New York Academy of Art MFA, New York, NY
2011 - 2014: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts BFA, Philadelphia, PA
2009 - 2011: School of Art + Design at Montgomery College, Silver Spring, MD

Achievements:
2021: Joseph Robert Foundation Grant
2021: Wolf Hill Residency, Chappaqua, NY
2021: Leipzig International Artist Program, Leipzig, Germany
​2020: Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant
2020: Nicolas V Sanchez Scholarship Program
2019: Posey Foundation Scholarship
2019: New York Academy of Art President's Scholar
2017: TrueQué Residencia Artística, Playas, Ecuador
2017: 40th St Artist In Residence Program, University of Pennsylvania
2016: 360 Xochi Quetzal Artist Residency Program, Jalisco, Mexico.
2014: The Benjamin West Award, PAFA
2014: Francis D. Bergman Award: Special Notice, PAFA
2013: Cecilia Beaux Memorial Prize, PAFA
2013: Lambert and Emma Wallace Cadwalader Prize for Portraiture, PAFA
2011 - 2014: Merit Scholarship for tuition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA)


Publications:
2021: New American Paintings MFA Annual, Issue #152
2020: New American Paintings MFA Annual, Issue #147
2019: Disrupted Realism: Paintings for a Distracted World, by John Seed, Schiffer Publishing
2018: Caldera Magazine: New Understandings, Issue 002, p. 14
2018: Create Magazine, Issue 11, p. 38
2017: Manifest Gallery, International Painting Annual Vol. 7, p. 73
2016: The Huffington Post: "Didi Menendez's 'Chévere’" by Daniel Maidman
2016: Poets and Artists Magazine: Thunder, Emerging Artists Under 30 p. 10
2016: Poets and Artists Magazine: Portraits, Issue 74 p. 27
2015: AL DÍA News: "Santiago Galeas: Subsurface" p. 14
2015: The Huffington Post: "Santiago Galeas: 'Subsurface' at Rodger LaPelle Galleries, Philadelphia"
2015: Poets and Artists Magazine: Heightened Perceptions, Issue 65 p. 40, 41, front cover

Selected Exhibitions and Fairs:
Nov. 2022: Untitled Art Fair, Sean Horton Presents, Miami, FL
Oct. 2022: Semillas de Memoria, Sean Horton Presents, New York, NY
Feb. 2022: Claiming the Narrative, Visual Art Center of New Jersey, Summit, NJ
Nov. 2021: Blue Review Art Prize, Sugarlift Gallery, New York, NY
Jul. 2021: I have an Idea!, 1969 Gallery, New York, NY
Feb. 2021: Parallels and Peripheries, New York Academy of Art, New York, NY
Apr. 2019: 4 Queer Voices, William Way LGBT Community Center, Philadelphia, PA
Jun. 2018: Being Seen, 40th St AIR Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Aug. 2017: Diáspora, A Seed on Diamond Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Feb. 2017: Sight Unseen, Abend Gallery, Denver, CO
Jan. 2017: How Do I Look? Shifting Representations of Queer Identities, Da Vinci Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA
Dec. 2016: Chévere’, Sirona Fine Art, Hallandale, FL
Oct. 2016: V Argentine Week in Philadelphia, City Hall, Philadelphia, PA
Apr. 2016: 153rd Exhibition of Small Oil Paintings, Philadelphia Sketch Club, Philadelphia, PA
Mar. 2016: Out of the Academy, Waverly Gallery, Gladwyne, PA
Dec. 2015: Works on Paper, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Alumni Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Nov. 2015: Reflections, Rodger LaPelle Galleries, Philadelphia, PA
Sep. 2015: Subsurface, Rodger LaPelle Galleries, Philadelphia, PA
July 2015: Summer Salon, Rodger LaPelle Galleries, Philadelphia, PA
Jun. 2014: 113th Annual Student Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
Nov. 2014: Gifts From Earth: Selected works from Santiago Galeas, Diane Gale, and Brendan McAtamney,
E-Moderne Gallerie, Philadelphia, PA
Nov. 2014: Portraits from Life: PAFA at Baldwin, The Baldwin School, Bryn Mawr, PA
Dec. 2014: December Group Exhibition, Rodger LaPelle Galleries, Philadelphia, PA
Dec. 2014: Annual Juried Show, Abington Art Center, Jenkintown, PA
Jan. 2015: Young Visions, Artists' House Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

​My paintings create the conditions for connections between identity and ecology that are at odds with the world traditionally represented in landscape and portraiture. I create scenes of unexpected belonging: unexpected because of the queer and trans subjects of color I choose to portray, the bright colors accenting the spaces, and the American landscape settings in which I choose to portray those subjects; and belonging because we are so rarely asked to think of queer and trans people as individuals worthy of being in portraiture. In my paintings, a relationship between queerness and nature is being made apparent.