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Andrew Salgado
The
Patience, 2011
oil on canvas
80 x 36 in
© the
artist
ANDREW
SALGADO
ANXIOUS
13
October to 18 November 2011
ANXIOUS, Andrew Salgado's first solo
exhibition in New York City, sees the artist drawing upon
historic masculine portraiture handled with an experimental,
painterly sensibility, suggesting themes of displaced identity
and an overriding technical love for the medium. Salgado’s
paintings are an exploration of the concept of masculine
identity through an assertive, gestural approach to figurative
representation. The works reference Classical archetypes found
in figurative masculine portraiture, while prioritizing a
disregard for what Salgado views as the 'parameters' of
figurative painting; Salgado himself recounts artists as
diverse as Caravaggio, Veronese, Bjarne Melgaard, Francis
Bacon, and Daniel Richter as influences. As a result, the
works resonate with a frenetic, nearly schizophrenic energy,
suggesting both a serene recollection of memory and
convalescence (a number of the works feature mouthless boys,
perhaps suggesting Salgado's victimization in a 2008
hate-crime assault in which he lost his teeth,) but move
beyond mere solipsism in favor of metaphor, narrative and
aggressive, abstract brushwork. ANXIOUS is a
collection of nearly one-dozen, never before exhibited works
(all from 2011) featuring portraits that loom from the canvas
with a sensuous, aggressive painterliness and
politically-charged narrative.
Conceptually, Salgado’s practice (re)considers the
tangibility and impermanence of the body, but also inwardly
comments upon the fragility of self. Accordingly, Salgado
typically exploits the purely physical properties of media to
inform resonating themes within his work. In an effort to
surpass a literal (re)presentation of his subject-matter, he
prioritizes a visceral, topographic painting surface and at
times, a use of paint that calls attention to - and celebrates
- its sheer materiality. The work asks for consideration of an
evolving language of figuration and abstraction, calling
attention to what is visible and what is suggested: pulling
the viewer from the sutures of representation, and drawing
attention to the painterly versus the
metaphorical.
ANXIOUS runs October 13 - November 18 at
Tache Gallery NYC. Reception October 13, 6-9pm with artist in
attendance.
ANDREW SALGADO (b. 1982, Canada) lives and works in
London, UK. He holds an MFA from London’s Chelsea College of
Art (2009) and has exhibited in London, Berlin, Oslo,
Vancouver, Toronto, Venezuela, and Niamey (Niger). Forthcoming
solo exhibitions include The Misanthrope,
Beers.Lambert Contemporary, London, UK, (2012); New
Paintings, Dosi Gallery, Busan, Korea (2012); Black
Paintings, MellerMerceux, Oxford, UK; and The
Acquaintance, Art Gallery of Regina, Regina, Canada
(2012). Previous solo exhibitions include Paint Your Black
Heart Red, Galerei Atopia, Oslo, Norway (2010); and
Boys Night Out, Interurban Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
(2008). Noteworthy group exhibitions include
Transgression, Beers.Lambert Contemporary Art,
London, UK (2011); Golden, La Petit Mort Gallery,
Ottawa, Canada (2011); Art For Life [featured
artist], Vancouver, Canada (2011); the 2010 Merida Venezuela
Biennale; and the Courtauld Institute Academy Hang IX
along Gary Hume and Tracy Emin (2010-11), London, UK. He was
awarded Courvoisier’s Future 500 (2010), shortlisted for Art
of Giving at London’s Saatchi Gallery (2010), and will be
featured in the forthcoming Channel 4 (UK) documentary The
Science of Art alongside Anish Kapoor and Bridget Riley
(2011).
TACHE GALLERY
547 W 27
Street No.602
New
York, NY 10001
T: +1
347 453 7903
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