A CONVERSATION WITH ARTIST ANDREW SALGADO
ANDREW SALGADO (b. 1982, Canada) graduated with an MA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art in 2009, and is regarded as one of the United Kingdom’s leading figurative painters.
Since 2010, he has had over 15 sold-out international solo exhibitions in London, New York, Miami, Toronto, Cape Town, Basel (Switzerland), and Zagreb. Forthcoming solo exhibitions include A Never-Setting Sun at BEERS London, (May 2022); as well as his Tokyo debut with MAKI Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (autumn 2022). His works have been collected extensively in private and public collections worldwide, including the Government of Canada, The Jordanian Royal Family, Simmons & Simmons, the Esquinazi Collection, Edwin Oostmeier Collection, and more. He lives and works in London, England.
Tell us about your greatest inspirations or influences please.
I think inspiration comes from anywhere - and I try not to be hierarchical about what those sources are. I love music - I think most artists would tell you the same thing. Music is so immediate and the process of art-making is so slow, so there's an instantaneous aspect to music that can really help tap into your creativity.
I love to read. I'm always reading. Two, three books at a time. I have recently been thinking about books that all artists really should read, or at least, have access to. They'd be Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal. There are some great translations available and its second to none when you're searching for imagery or ideas. Derek Jarman's Modern Nature or perhaps even the pocket-sized Pharmacopeia for similar reasons, which details his process creating a garden while dying of HIV. I personally love Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief, which is about passion and obsession and the pursuit of beauty. Then something practical can usually inspire me. Recently I read Being A Writer which collects all these musings by authors; but really, their lessons are very applicable. My friend Maria Brito's new book, How Creativity Rules the World is similarly inspirational in terms of real-world examples; also a must-read.
I respond to nature, the beauty in the natural world. And of course, to art. No artist worth your time would say any less.
How are the current trends in technology and innovation affecting your work as a creative?
I think it’s important to adopt technology to make your life and process in the studio as straightforward as possible. But I also keep getting asked about NFTs. Like - I couldn't care less. I think they've already crashed; I don't even know what that all means. All I see is this dopey-faced ape and I can't comprehend what any collector would want with that. Buy real, tangible art, for a real, tangible world.
We’d love to hear more about your creative process.
So often ideas will swim around for months, or even a year or more. I take lengthy notes. Sometimes its just jotting down a title or something that I'll come back to. For instance, 'the flower eater' was an idea that I did a bit of research on and it eventually became 'The Lotus Eaters', which is the title of my forthcoming show at Maki Gallery, Tokyo. It refers to a group of people Odysseus came across during his travels who ate the fruit of the lotus plant and forgot their general worries. And I'm thinking 'is that so bad? What's so wrong with that?' Anyway, the tale is told as a sort of warning: not to forget your real-life concerns. I am drawn to stuff like that.
So then I'll usually create a larger narrative in my head. I like stories. I like how we create modern mythologies in almost everything we do. And I always say the studio is just a metaphor for real-life. So on many levels, I'm creating a sort-of anthology; I'm making choices. Who's in? Who's out? Sometimes paintings don't work and I have to let them go. Other times they want to take me on a pathway that's not entirely what I had planned for it. I need to be porous to that process, because I don't always have full control in the studio. What you envisage in your head and what ends up on the paper aren't always the same thing. So I get in there and work through the problems and try to come up with something coherent. It takes some months, in total. I think I'm at the stage finally where I can come and just enjoy the process. But there's always some struggle. Always a bit of hair-pulling.
What do you think of the art world and how it works in general?
I am quite vocal about my distaste for the art world. I think it’s a nasty industry that thrives on nepotism and tokenism. It's not a meritocracy, and that can be a hard reality when you've put in 20 years of work but some kid fresh from grad-school fits an image that this world wants to propagate. I think it's best that's all I say about that.
Anything coming up that we should know about?
The Lotus Eaters opens November 5th at Maki Gallery, Toyko.
After this I'll have a solo in spring 2023 at Piermarq in Sydney, Australia.
What does wellbeing mean to you and anything in particular that you practice?
This is actually something that's come up lots lately. I have learned that to be a better artist, I actually need to step away from the studio a little earlier/sooner. I leave earlier. I exercise regularly. I do yoga, run, lift weights. I think this myth of spending 15-18 hours in the studio, seven days a week - that's a myth. That's not healthy. It's not sustainable. I'm more like, yeah, go 5-6 days a week. But there's a time to tap out. Go get your sun. Go read your book.
As Bjork says, 'there's more to life than this.'
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
I am curating an LGBT-themed show that opens June 18 at Beers London. We have a very exciting roster and a short text written by Russell Tovey.
