Andrew Salgado

It Will All Undo, 2009, oil on canvas, 76 x 63 in.

Eyes Without A Face II (Sara), 2010, oil on canvas, 60 x 60 in.

The Minotaur, 2010, oil on canvas, 60 x 48 in.

The Mannerist, 2010, oil on canvas, 60 x 48 in.

Carnivore, 2008, oil on canvas, 36 x 36 in.

Beams (The Mannerist II), 2010, oil on canvas, 52 x 52 in.

The Tide, 2010, oil on canvas, 106 x 76 in.

The Archivist, 2010, oil on canvas, 88 x 55 in.

Artist Statement

My paintings present a perspective of a brutalized male body in heightened, melodramatic states. I am interested in depicting banal subjects as elevated and allegorical, in which representations refer to their own physicality and – through the gestural application of paint – the nature of painting. The visceral and emotive approach toward my paintings stems largely in part from a cathartic incident in 2008, in the aftermath of which I became fascinated by ideas surrounding masculinity and began exploring the correlation between bodily fluids (namely blood, puss) and the physical properties of paint. Most of my work since has engaged a dialogue of sexuality, identity, and a confrontation of the conceptual understanding of self/other.

Through my treatment of form and content, I ask the viewer to consider the technical aspects of my paintings, but also the metaphorical role that media assumes in my work, and finally the relationship of my paintings to a greater narrative and mythology, in which each subject is related to ideas of psyche and convalescence. As a result, my work often uses personal history to approach universal themes, and a politics that I view as deeply personal, yet resoundingly human. I am interested in how the luxurious, silky qualities of oil paint predominate as the fundamental manner to approach the works. This work seeks to distance itself from a literal figurative foundation to engage with an exploration of color, reduction of forms, and triumph of substance as seductive, overt, and playful. By reducing the literalness of the image in preference of a sensual painted surface, I hope to create work that engages with a continuously forming language of painting and representation.

By drawing attention to the purely tangible properties of paint, it is my goal to pull the viewer from the sutures of the represented subject. With each successive work, I hope to draw attention to the painterly versus the formal, predominating the medium as integral to the understanding and formation of my work, and referencing painting as both ‘act’ and ‘medium’.

Andrew Salgado’s Website