“Just in Time to See the Sun”
(Portrait of Carlos Santana)
Ceramic, found guitar strings and a strap.
68 x 63 x 64″
2021

Since childhood, Tony has revered Carlos Santana for his musical abilities and humanistic approach to
life by preaching love and peace at his concerts. Tony recalls reading the musician’s philosophy of life:
“I’m not showbiz and entertainment, I’m an activist,” Carlos stated. “I’m a person who, with passion,
believes that we can change the world, we can transform hate and fear forever with the right songs and
the right timing.” Tony fervently believed in Carlos’ manifesto for a better world and wanted his sculpture
to embody this spirit.
For this portrait, Tony portrays the musician as the young man he would have been when performing
at the Woodstock music festival in 1969. Revisiting the era’s fashion, Carlos is capped with “big
hair” and wears a colorful shirt. The design on the front of the shirt references Tony’s favorite Santana
album, Caravanserai, and represented on the back is the historic music club Fillmore West; this is the
venue that launched the musical career of Carlos Santana and his band.
Attempting to capture the zeitgeist of the 1960s San Francisco psychedelic scene, in which Carlos was
rooted, Tony sculpts the musician with his eyes closed in meditation, playing an electric guitar. The
artist describes his rationale for designing a snakeskin-like pattern on the guitar: “As the story goes,
Carlos was high on mescaline at Woodstock, and he hallucinated that his guitar turned into a snake
while playing a solo.” This is symbolised by his snake-skin guitar. Carlos emerges amidst the full bloom
with extended petals drenched in multiple layers of Acid-colored glazes. And as grounding for the exuberant
portrait, the emergent Carlos and the giant flower are balanced on a conga drum, signifying the
various Latin rhythms in Santana’s music.
Just