Painter, muralist, printmaker, scratchboard artist, and teacher, Sergio Sánchez Santamaría was born in Tlayacapan, Morelos, Mexico in 1976. He received his Bachelor of Plastic Arts degree from the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura, y Grabado, a.k.a. La Esmeralda, in Mexico City.
Sánchez Santamaría has exhibited his work throughout Latin America and Europe, in the United States, and in Japan and China. He describes his art “as contemporary, with a retro and a futuristic tendency. My art is eclectic and humanistic. Humanistic because I am interested in society and in the individual.” There have been three books published on his life and work including: Los Viernes de Cuaresma en Morelos, 2016; Sergio Sánchez Santamaría: Dos Decadas de Grafica, 2017; and Graphic in Transit: Sergio Sánchez Santamaría, 2021. The latter, written by Sánchez Santamaría, examines the construction of Mexican identity via the visual arts and explores the contributions of major artists such as José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913) and two generations of graphic artists of the Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP). Sánchez Santamaría, having had prominent engravers as mentors and teachers such as Leo Acosta, Alberto Beltrán, and Adolfo Mexiac, had also driven inspiration from Leopoldo Méndez, Alfredo Zalce, and Pablo O'Higgins. Special attention to the work of African American/Mexican Elizabet Catlett is also given, placing the work of Sánchez Santamaría in this historical timeline. If Posada is the "godfather of political/modern printmaking" in Mexico, Sánchez Santamaría is the "heir that scratches" into a new generation of graphic artists of the nation.