Don Santana

Don Santana is a Math professor at San Beda College, a freelance artist, and an Art teacher. His early orientation in art was through his father, Jose T. Santana, and his uncle, Mar T. Santana, both Comics illustrators. He attended art workshops under Fernando Sena and other artists, and after years of training, he established his own art workshop.

His advocacy in art is to preserve the richness of Filipino Indigenous culture and nature. Through his art, he wants to pass on to the next generation of Filipinos the importance of cultural identity and the connection of their culture to nature. Most of his art is done in pen and colored micron pens, as his orientation with pens is rooted in his father's influence. He uses traditional colors to express the ethnicity of Philippine indigenous culture. Most of the subjects in Santana's artworks are the different indigenous people of the Philippines; namely the T’boli, Yakan, Manobo, Bagobo, Tausug, Gadang, and others, which he incorporates with the beauty of nature.