which is of very little interest to me. My paintings have always walked the line between figurative and the ab- stract, sometimes swaying to greater degree one way or the other. I have no interest in painting someone’s sibling, or partner or child. My paintings are political, in the sense that I have something to say through my art. They are aggressive and painterly… I’m more con- cerned with the qualities of paint and ideas that occur extraneous to the painting itself when the sutures of the painting itself are ripped apart. A portrait is just a nice picture and nothing more.
I have little time for ambivalence… I firmly believe that a “pleasant” painting is worthless and about this I’m quite opinionated... Ha! I saw your work at the San Diego Art Fair in 2013; it stopped me in my tracks because it is so striking. Unique because they represent not only the figure, but they evoke the untold story about each character painted. Do you conduct backgrounds on your subjects before you begin your process, or do you prefer them to be unknown? I vacillate between painting people I know and
then stopping total strangers and asking them to come sit. There is a process of discovery for both the subject and I when they come in to the studio and throughout the process of painting. One of my most painted subjects was actually hit by a truck and in critical condition when I was painting works with him…that was a very scary, very real period. With some subjects, I do feel such intimate close-
ness through the process of spending so much time with their likeness, their “face.” But in reality, I actually know very little about them and I’m actually okay with that. It was Oscar Wilde who said that every portrait (there’s that word) says more about the painter than the sitter and I firmly believe that. Ultimately, what
I do is quite selfish…I’m like a vampire, I take what I want from those that rouse me and then I leave them. Used up and thrown aside. Its kind of vulgar when you look at it that way, but also quite a romantic idea. Your technical skills are obvious, your execution is truly wonderful, but it is the emotion that I find so striking in your works, can you talk about how you communicate/ express that? To be totally honest this is what most people
speak about…the emotion portrayed throughout the work. In reality, I have no idea…it’s never a conscious decision wherein I say “okay, I’m going
to paint emotion”. I guess somewhere between my earnest approach and the motivations for my work, something gets translated. It’s a huge honor to know the paintings move people.
Andrew Salgado’s work can be can be acquired locally at WHITE BOX Contemporary in San Diego. For more information go to
whiteboxcontemporary.com.
For more information on the artist and his beautiful and extremely popular works, join his facebook page at facebook. com/
andrew.salgado.artist.
MARCH 2014 | RAGE monthly 39
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