BEAUTIFUL MONSTROSITIES

ANDREW SALGADO (b. 1982) has exhibited in the United Kingdom, Germany, Scandinavia, Australia, Venezuela, Thailand, Korea, South Africa, Canada, and the United States. 

My recent works explore concepts relating to the destruction and reconstruction of identity – approached through both the concept and technique inherent in the work. I have always been concerned with a process of re-considering the conventions of figurative painting to explore a continued pursuit toward abstraction; my goal is to create paintings that engage with matters beyond what is immediately visible. These paintings often quite consciously and reflexively question the nature of painting and the greater context for my practice, and present a politicized consideration of identity as considered beyond mere painted representation.

 

However, my process does not shy away from narrative; while the present body of works exist as increasingly less autobiographical, I do not negate own my personal connection to the overall story that is being told. A significant perspective of my work is concerned with what I consider the ‘beautiful monstrosity’ of the masculine form, incorporating Classical archetypes like the Laocoön or Dionysian, to more technical considerations like referencing artists from Veronese, Guston, Bacon (to name a few) but also inspired by a wild deviation from rules as explored by artists like Daniel Richter or Bjarne Melgaard.



 I am interested in how my paintings might operate independently from their literal figurative foundation and engage with an exploration of color, reduction of forms, and triumph of materiality. Through this process of discovery, I hope to create work that engages with a continuously forming language of painting and representation. By drawing attention to the tangibility of the work, I want to ask relevant personal and political questions, and finally pull the viewer from the sutures of the represented subject and invite readings beyond the confines of the painted picture.