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14/10/2005

Michael Salerno

Upfront Gallery, Ventura

Full Spectrum

Upfront Gallery is pleased to present recent work by L.A. legend, Michael Salerno, his first solo exhibition in the region. At the age of 28, Salerno relocated from New York. Self-taught, his work from the time of his arrival in Los Angeles (1976) has a stronger formal resemblance (in media, elemental design, consistency and detached determination) to his current body of work than does that of any contemporary artist working today. Salerno ignored the clamor for pretty art and argued with the cries for conceptual rigor. He ignored the market and fashion police in favor of a strange thing­just making his art. His interest in the potentials of light and space continued even though expressive new image painting and post-modern cynicism subsequently became more popular fields of study. The subject of more than 200 exhibitions, his work can be found in public and private collections in Asia, Europe, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

MICHAEL SALERNO: WHITE LIGHT, WHITE NOISE

All objects are observable to the extent that they reflect light into the eye of the observer. But when that object changes with every subtle shift in lighting, what exactly is it that we are perceiving? Michael Salerno won't tell you the answers; you have to decide for yourself. His highly detailed works, built up on the surface of wood almost architecturally, with layers upon layers of oil, appear at first glance to be simple fields of color - until closer observation reveals an almost limitless depth and range. Working intuitively, Salerno's congealed composites of line and paint catch the light at various angles, changing with each small shift, causing his paintings to be "probably 90 percent light," and infinitely mutable.

What do they depict? Nothing, and everything. "You could say they're fractals, but with non-repetitive patterns," he explains. It's easy to lose oneself in the tangle of lines that, from a short distance, melt into an absorbing field of changing forms. "People like to find things in them," he comments as he works on a new piece in silver. But it's clear from watching him work that these paintings are a transmission from a consciousness that is non-objective, that is purely about movement and creation. Salerno's works are a Geiger counter for the white noise of the human soul. -Lucinda Michele Knapp, L.A. Alternative Press Volume 2 Number 13

"If you look at the ceiling of some prehistoric caves, you will see a tangle of lines made by ancient artists, with their fingers in wet clay. We sense this is sacred and ritualistic ground, and feel a profound moment of identification between our forbears and our own humanness. Michael Salerno's work stands in a direct line from that time to the present.

Leonardo DaVinci recommended weaving a tangle of lines, and the study of it, in which you would see armies, cities, mountains and waters. Of course, beyond free association, in Michael Salerno's work you will experience much more. From Tabla Rasa to what becomes a dense multi layered field of woven line - like an active, tremulous energy field, spread before your eyes - buzzing - humming - vibrating - shimmering, you see it, you feel it... a palpable expressive surface resulting from the insistence of a continuous line, accumulating, aggregating - a deep and powerful sense of human existence.

Michael Salerno's painting is like no other painting I know. It comes about differently. Once you find your way into it, you will be blown away. He is unique, and one of the most original painters I know." -Roland Reiss, Painting's Edge, Idyllwild Arts

Similar works presented recently were described by Mat Gleason as 'The Superior Paintings.' The exhibit explores visual dissonance as a neurological, rather than an optical, phenomena. Michael Salerno's precise color schematics of contrary and counter-intuitive color combinations are dispersed in a painterly style best described as a weave. The all-over composition of previously disharmonious elements leaves the realm of the ocular. The initial and natural reaction is to find a Superior color, and its corresponding schematic from within the dense cosmos of a Salerno composition. The Superior element of each painting is that which the eye can assess as dominant. The artist's melding of dissonance and harmony as time-based phenomena answers the age-old question of whether the mind rules the body or the body rules the mind with an impassioned affirmative for the latter.

According to the artist: One issue central to my work is the under-investigated All-Over approach to pictorial composition. Consider that Jackson Pollock was the inventor of All-Over painting - where a picture has no central point of composition and is unified by the materials an artist uses and the style with which the artist integrates these materials for the pleasure of the viewer. For all of the groundbreaking that Pollock accomplished, there have been few if any artists committing their careers to walk further down the trail he blazed. Being unable to walk through the door he had opened, the artist regularly reverted to figuration. To qualify as a pioneer, artists subsequently were required to direct their explorations to other areas of study and innovation as a means of laying claim to their own territory. Considering that All-Over Painting is younger than Surrealism, cinema and photography, there is ample territory to be investigated and I have been devoted to pushing the All-Over genre to new optical possibilities that retain a purity and immediacy in technique and results.

Opening Reception: Saturday, October 15, 6-9 pm

City of Ventura Harvest ArtWalk: Saturday, November 5, 3-9 pm

Upfront Gallery
267 S. Laurel Street, Ventura
Gallery Hours: Friday-Saturday, 12-5 pm and Sunday, 2-5 pm, and by appointment

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