“Into the Wild” is a regular interview with early career print artists. Interviews will highlight the varied paths the subjects are taking to strike an accord between life and their artistic practice. Expect a balance of approaches, from those hopping the residency circuit, to those teaching part-time or who snagged the elusive tenure-track gig right out of the gate, or those working a desk job or waiting tables to afford access to a community print shop or maker space. In short, there’s many ways to “make it” and we want to share them all!

Have an idea for a person to interview? Please submit suggestions to the Interviews section of the Submissions portal below.

Sebastián Román Soto was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico on February 15, 2001, and lives in the town of Bayamón, PR. His interest in visual arts, particularly drawing, began through comics as graphic novels and cartoons. Additionally, his artistic career started to formally develop after the pandemic period during the return to in-person classes. Román took a printmaking course for the first time and decided to continue learning alongside his teacher and mentor, Martín García-Rivera. Román is a candidate for a Bachelor’s degree in Arts with a Multidisciplinary emphasis (2024).

Artist Statement: 

“The art is a representation of a manifestation where expression and imagination unite in a personal process for each individual, where the individual, under their own interests and will, decides to show it to different societies.” – Sebastián & Ramón Román Soto, July 24, 2021

B: How has your work been shaped by your experience at UPRRP? How did your time in college help form your connection to the art and print community of Puerto Rico and/or your identity as a Puerto Rican artist? Where can we find that connection illustrated in your prints?

SRS: My work has been shaped by accepting the most opportunities that were available to me possible, initially I had to sacrifice many things like going out with friends or having any sort of entertainment in order to give myself to my work, to dive inside my own experience and wander through consciousness and subconsciousness. That didn’t mean I completely isolated myself though, most work does come from heavy thinking, but I decided to look towards professors and then, to my peers to understand how my work transformed from curiosity-driven to initiative and a learning-on investigation. The way my work has helped me identify myself  as a Puerto Rican artist is through narratives that I have chosen to display in my work, a personal and human learning experience of the absurd reality of living in the island, the surrealistic enjoyment of creativity and mentorship have guided me to transcend challenges faced throughout.

Tripode pide un consejo
11″ x 15”
Watercolor
2023

B: Your work includes painting and sculpture. How has printmaking influenced your work in these other mediums? How have they in turn impacted your print practice?

SRS: Printmaking influenced me to try these other mediums as a community. I dived into other people’s work, the details and connections tied to what I have related with. As well as communicating with my department’s professors; they have provided me with resources and libraries of knowledge. Painting and sculpture are definitely not my strongest suit, but I have used it as an inspiring factor. The idea of these two other mediums was because of the feedback of my professors as I was taking painting classes. They provided me with the idea to try out my designs and techniques in these other mediums to see how it could translate and add to the practice. The expressions in my prints are mostly derived from the raw reaction to the resistance of the material in itself. As well as the use of the tool to carve, it carries a transfer of weight from the palm of the hand to the tip of the fingers, in order to recognize the muscular effect it has on my hands. Through intuition the expression and aggressiveness is also derived through inspiration of works of other people in art history books,  art competition catalogs, and portfolios.

Cumbanchero y Bongocero
15″ x 12”
Engraving
2023
(Participated in International Biennial of Graphics Mitrovica Print in Kosovo)

B: Please tell us more about your prints. Your etchings and monotypes are particularly engaging. How did you develop your surrealistic visual vocabulary and expressive mark-making? There are some aesthetic references that feel familiar. Who are your influences and how have you integrated those references into your work while asserting your own voice?

SRS: The surrealistic visuals and expressiveness come through studying myself, reflecting and contemplating, to accept imperfections and imagining contortions, movement, spatial awareness and impossibility, breaking the sense of reality. I tried to self-teach how to draw perfectly from memory. Once I learned the basics and foundations of drawing, I saw the works of my professors and decided to break and experiment through these mediums during and after the pandemic. The pandemic was definitely a portal of sorts, built directly to nostalgia, it created and widened barriers to try to break through mentally and socially. I know that it affected everybody to a part where it made us make bold decisions about ourselves as people. It definitely made me think a lot about my career and the way of looking at life really shifted. Once I got to know Martín García-Rivera, it was all magic from there. The conversations we had during my college degree have created a solid bond between inspiration and mentorship. His way of working and learning has taught me the same of myself, passion and pride and discipline for my work. Although I learned about discipline through sports such as Taekwon-do, jiu jitsu, kickboxing, volleyball, soccer, and sprint kayaking, I believe that what has helped influence my work and helped me assert my own voice has been through the push factor of constantly drawing without a concept, allowing me to create narratives and perspectives out of experiences brought to me or that I have been a part of. I really don’t know how I assert my own voice in the end, in some ways I can only create what comes to mind, influenced by the information gathered around me. For example, epiphanies might be an overstatement, but it is one way of explaining how we learn about human behavior and reflection that gives me the freedom to experiment by doing something with it, even if it means nothing. Irony, satire, and joking have always been a big influence in my artistic expression.

El Cuco
4″ x 4”
Engraving
2022
(Received Honorary Mention in Biennial of Miniature Graphics at Caracas, Venezuela)

Rito de un asesinato
15″ x 12”
Engraving
(Participated in International Biennial of Graphics Mitrovica Print in Kosovo)

B: Puertograbando, the 2025 SGCI conference is coming to San Juan in April. Have you been involved with the preparations for the conference? What are you looking forward to sharing with the printmakers who attend, many of whom are likely visiting Puerto Rico for the first time? How do you think the conference will affect PR’s art community in turn? How would you like to see the conference give back to the local community?

SRS: I have been involved in meetings with the Island Committee for the 2025 SGCI conference. I have been working with the leaders of the committee in order to receive and give information on the basis of status at UPRRP and recruiting student volunteers. I look forward to network with fellow  printmakers who attend, learn from them as to what they have experimented through printmaking, and what other mediums they have worked in. Where do they find inspiration from and all sorts of questions. I am also looking forward to trading some art pieces as well. I trust that this conference will bring a larger spark to influence and inspire the printmakers and artists of all sorts on the island to join on the efforts of creating a larger community therefore, creating culture on the island as well. In relation to how the conference will give back to the local community, I believe it will provide the locals a really nice shared experience for us all and opportunities that will start to manifest once the conference takes place. As individuals we can always do good by the way we treat other people, without prejudice, without selfishness. As an organization, to avoid patronizing the local community it is important to acknowledge and empathize with the people providing the resources locally, it might not always work out in favor, therefore the mind should always be accepting of however it might need to compromise the situation, such is emotional intelligence. But when it does work in favor, any organization should be able to keep that empathy and knowledge within in order to be respectful of the legacy it’s willing to leave behind. I believe that statement is more likely based on values, ethics and morals.

De algún lado salió
18″ x 24”
Monotype with Oil Colors
2023

B: What are your goals for the next couple years? How have your goals/priorities changed with the end of school in sight?

SRS: My goals for the next couple of years is to see where I might end up with my masters degree. I’m looking forward to making it in printmaking and once I complete it I can come back home and teach to students. Although in the meantime I have been working mostly towards finding side hustles and part-time jobs. I have been helping some colleagues  in the theater department as well and finishing my minor’s degree in Portuguese. As a way of trying new things, what more than a foreign language, to open doors and tear down language barriers and connect with people. Learning Portuguese has also helped me look into artistic residencies for the future and travel goals with my family. Although I like to call that “The Future Chaos”, my “Present Chaos” is more tied to a life/work balance such as finding jobs, marketing myself and organizing a calendar in order to try to make something more commercial from my art.

Mogruño I
9″ x 12”
Monotype
2023

Sukirinpan, pinpinpumpam, kankakankan, frukutunpan
9″ x 12”
Monotype
2023

B: What advice would you give current students as they’re about to journey into the wild? What do you wish you’d been told or prepared for?

SRS: Embrace the challenges. Whenever you feel stuck, go for a walk, or a drive, or a swim or do a breathing exercise. Stay in contact with nature and your body. Evolve in curiosity. Dive in and wonder with fascination. I always say to myself that in the end, it will all be fine, but because I did something in the present. I was always told to take initiative, to be prepared for the challenge, to always take things up a notch, to be ambitious. I never knew how or how to deal with it verbally at times so I just drew up these thoughts in my notebook. Sometimes, I wish that psychology classes end up as core courses in every degree in the near future. Not everyone can afford a psychologist but I believe that professors are also big helpers that people tend to overlook with prejudice at times.

Chupacabra
Etching
2022

Banquete
Etching
2022