Artist, muralist, and designer Marco Santini aims to spread positivity, love and inclusion through his work. Based in New York City, he maintains a bright, colorful geometric style as he dabbles in different mediums including spray paint, markers, collage, and digital art. Through speaking and working in schools, Santini encourages children to channel positivity through artistic expression. Starting from the One Love logo he developed, his most prominent work is a series of love-themed murals with the word “love” written in many languages.
The artist’s current project, the Mural of Brotherly and Sisterly Love in Philadelphia is a step toward his goal to create a mural in all 50 states. Painted on a tall, slender wall in the beautiful, calm neighborhood of Fairmont, on the side of a new residential complex, Santini’s mural is certainly the most colorful sight in the nearby radius. With multiple levels of scaffolding and a week of work shortened to a few sunny days by the upcoming rain, Santini has a challenging project ahead of him. This particular mural came to be as a result of a chance encounter, perhaps channeling some positive forces. Santini had just mentioned someone from his town who he hadn’t seen in over 10 years in a conversation, and a few hours later, that person reached out to him on Instagram, saying, “I have a project for you.” In Santini’s words, “If this isn’t manifesting, I don’t know what is.”
Can you share a bit about your background in art and your journey to becoming a working artist?
I was always messing around, I felt really lucky in terms of my parents. When I was growing up, they wouldn’t really ask me what I was doing, but rather ‘why’ I was doing it. I felt that slight distinction at an early age really cultivated an understanding of vision, creativity and purpose. So I was messing around with art my whole life, and I ended up tearing my hamstring senior year of high school. I was going to play football in college and that kind of finished my career. I really turned to the arts as a way to help me heal and stay focused on something. I would go in every day after school and get lost in the colors and paints.
Santini went on to study linguistic anthropology at Brown, which he later brought back into his art by incorporating language into his works. It wasn’t until later in his life, he tells me, that he found his “life’s purpose to spread love and positivity.”
Regarding “love and positivity,” you really turn to these key words to describe your work very often. Could you expand more on how that became the crux of your work and what that means to you.
In 2018 I was super in love with my then girlfriend, I was constantly being inspired and felt so positive despite all the negativity around me. You are what you think, you are what you spend time doing, and by surrounding myself with all these positive, brightly colored geometric designs, I felt like I was manifesting them and thinking about those which helped me to get to the next level personally, professionally, and emotionally. I thought it would be helpful for other people to be surrounded by those. And so, I wanted to make a really specific distinction that I wasn’t going to go in a hallmark or kitschy direction. There are many versions of the heart, and the heart is an overplayed and overused motif—and so with my heart, I wanted it to be not just a heart, but something that draws you in. I feel really lucky that when people see my work, it draws them in, it’s like “oh there’s a heart, oh there’s my language, oh what else is in there?” It’s like the more you look, the more you see. I like to describe it as the “where’s Waldo” of art. Every time you see it, you see something different.
Santini’s One Love design “features the word love in over 80 languages, to symbolize that there is more that unites us than divides us.” Quite the visual emblem of his message, he has created many renditions of the One Love logo. Its aesthetic and purpose comes through in his mural work as well.
And so in 2018, I came up with this One Love logo. At least in New York City, it was really tense in terms of the political emotional climate, and so I created this logo with the word love in over 40 different languages, and I put it up illegally in the streets and just wanted to get it out there. And within a few months, I was being asked to do this at weddings, charity events, birthday parties, and even schools invited me—and it was a really powerful message that despite all our differences, there’s something that unites us. Seeing the love language, your love language, really brings us together.
When I create murals like this, when I create designs, I put Turkish and Armenian next to each other. I put Arabic next to Hebrew next to German. I’m putting English usually next to Russian and Ukrainian. And it’s this idea that despite all of our differences, we have this common word that is shared among all these different languages.
How do you see art as a response to politics and a way to address issues?
My art definitely rose because of that, but I like to think that my art is nonpartisan. Despite what you believe, you can see this as something you can relate to. My biggest mural before this one was at a church in East Harlem on Museum Mile. I convinced the church to let me paint the word love in 100 languages on this wall that connects them and a food pantry. I found this as a very eye opening moment where people of a specific religion or specific thought would walk by and see love in many different languages. And despite your single viewpoint of the world, being open minded and understanding of all those other cultures I feel is important to help us understand this greater good that we’re all a part of.
Marco Santini, Mural of Brotherly and Sisterly Love, 2021 
Marco Santini, Mural of Brotherly and Sisterly Love, 2021
Can you discuss the aesthetic of your work and use of language?
I think I’m just excited by colors and trying to bring that to the world. One thing I wanted to say about my last design, and even this one—I like to think of it as a ‘religion of love’, and this is kind of the stained glass, street version of it. I like to say my religion is love, half joking but half serious. I felt, how can I know what my religion is, how can I know that my ideas are the one? And I feel like opening my eyes […] has brought me into understanding, we are all connected in this form of consciousness rather than a specific viewset. And so, hopefully my art says that. I’ve spoken to a lot of people, both Turkish and Armenian who at first seeing their languages next to each other takes them a step back, but then they see it and kind of understand it, and that understanding is powerful. I feel like seeing [that] bridges a gap in history that has been really difficult and continues today, and seeing how that can happen is my sense of showing how we can be a better humanity together.
There’s something really special about placement and public work—what’s special about public art to you?
I love creating anywhere and everywhere. Creating in open, outdoor areas where people are walking by, people from other buildings are looking down as I’m painting… it has a more open-ended, inclusive nature, which I really strive for. I really appreciate the idea of creating, especially murals, for everyone to appreciate. You walk by, it catches you by the corner of your eye and you see it and stop. People can appreciate it on a regular, daily basis, rather than a once-in-a-while, exclusive version.
What happens after your works are complete?
The more difficult the piece, the longer it stays up. If it’s lower to the ground, people can either tag it or paint it.
Is that natural wear and tear something that you accept as the nature of the work?
Yeah, I think that the beauty of street art, murals and graffiti work is that you never know how long your work is gonna stay on the streets. And it really shows this appreciation for something that may not be there always and to enjoy it while it lasts. In that sense, it’s this acceptance of the ephemeral nature of humanity and creation in general. When I really think about it, it makes me smile.
