He is better known for his body of work "Syncretism", a term he uses to describe paintings where he presents two or more art tendencies in aesthetic balance.

He also started studying art at a young age, impressed by his uncle Raul Santos Zerpa, a prominent Cuban painter in the 1960s.

Initially he started painting still life pieces, but he felt that something was missing from his work and began incorporating the figure into his compositions.

[7] "Syncretism is a philosophical vision intending to reconcile different doctrines, a social mechanism that attenuates the confrontation between antagonistic tendencies competing for the same space."

While in New York, he participated in Metropolitan Museum's 2010 contest "It's Time We Met" and received first place for his photograph Dancers.

[9] He is regularly invited to lecture on his painting techniques throughout the world, where he teaches portrait anatomy and structure from various points of view.

Forum MDC wrote of his work that "in an era in which technique is often an afterthought, Cesar Santos is a modern master who evocatively combines the classical and the contemporary in his paintings."

According to Santos, "the ultimate goal of his syncretic work is to establish a new painterly realm with its own defined characteristics; like any other legitimate process of evolution, it gains a foothold in the preceding stages until the assimilation of the opposing trends is expressed as a newly born and unified entity.

[13] Boston Globe wrote an article about a painting competition where Santos won the grand prize; the newspaper in part quoted him: "Like a poet will be able to write a sentence .

Cultura Inequita reviewed the series writing that "Santos' work reflects both classical and modern interpretations juxtaposed within one painting.

"[19] The American Arts Quarterly used a painting from Syncretism for their Winter 2012 cover and reviewing the work wrote that "Santos' more conceptual juxtapositions are firmly rooted in mainstream art history... Santos's humor overtakes the dialogue between past and present, and the painting topples over into frivolousness.

"[20] In 2013, Miami Herald praised Santos for his ability to juxtapose two opposite ideas in one painting writing about The Artist's Accomplice that "his new show at Oxenberg juxtaposes the sensuous and finely rendered female nudes that characterise much of his work with rough burlap surfaces of an antique artist's mannequin.