Andrew Salgado Talks To Yatzer
Words by Stefania Vourazeri
Location
The In Order to Rebuild exhibition at the Dosi Gallery in Korea (20 July /18 August 2012, 202-2 Kwangan 2 dong, Suyoung-gu, Busan, Korea) features the work of Andrew Salgado, the London based painter from Canada known for his eerie paintings that are preoccupied with universal themes such as identity, sexuality and convalescence. He considers himself a storyteller and admits to his attraction to faces. 'I am attracted to interesting faces and I am certainly no stranger to melodrama. I like dramatic lighting and faces that immediately grab my attention and the attention of the viewer,''he says.
Salgado avoids subjects whose emotions are easily definable. He considers smiling, accessible and plainly ‘happy’ subjects as banal. ''I think it is much more interesting to paint faces that have a type of strength in their emotion. Along with the process of painting and abstracting the figure, I use emotion to confound and blur any easy reading of the figure within the work''.
Andrew Salgado // The Bewildered Pursuit, 2012 (detail)
Oil on canvas // 140x190cm
Andrew Salgado // Deeper, 2012
Oil on canvas // 110x70cm
© Andrew Salgado // If One Man's Joy is Another Man's Sadness, 2012
Oil on canvas // 140x140cm
© Andrew Salgado // Trust (Self-Portrait I) , 2012
Oil on canvas // 160x210cm
His new series of paintings currently being shown in Korea are connected to some of his previous work.
>> I floundered a little bit in the studio at the beginning of 2012 without any real direction for a couple of months, painting things without realizing, or wanting to realize the connection between the works... I had watched a documentary about two brothers who – after a childhood of sexual assault from a friend of their father’s, brutally murdered their father… I became haunted by the story. I painted them in a diptych, and following this, had a relatively unpleasant heart to heart with my long-term partner which resulted in the self-portrait Trust. I came to terms with a very moving personal realization and finally, like a message, the concept came to me simply: something must be broken ‘In Order to Rebuild’ and thus came the title of the show. <<
© Andrew Salgado // Its Not About Love, 2012
Oil on canvas // 140x120cm
© Andrew Salgado // This Wasn't My Weakness (Self-Portrait II) , 2012
Oil on canvas // 160x230cm
© Andrew Salgado // In Avoidance of Failure , 2012
Oil on canvas // 130x135cm
© Andrew Salgado // Oil on canvas
This breakthrough made Salgado realize that his latest pieces were related to the aftermath of some painful incidents and started to consider the stories more externally. He became the observer, the storyteller. ''I looked for stories that interested me - which I felt in some way I might simply observe, without passing judgment or trying to solve. The latter works became quite colorful and vibrant, but maintain that curious balance between hope and pain.''
© Andrew Salgado // Playtime , 2012
Oil on canvas // 150x120cm
© Andrew Salgado // An Altered Peace , 2012
Oil on canvas // 120x150cm
Andrew Salgado for Vitamin Magazine.