New exhibition at Casa Saturninita, 'Spontaneity' by Luis Salazar

 

A select sample of the figurative compositions of nudes and musical representations by the Gran Canaria painter Luis Salazar Cruz (Carrizal de Ingenio, 1960) is exhibited interesting and attractive at the Casa de Saturninita Art Center, in San Fernando de Maspalomas, until next 1 December.

 

The exhibition, titled 'Spontaneity' by Salazar himself, is composed of 12 medium-format works made by the artist for a complex series of more than 30 paintings created between 2017 and 2022. 

 

In the artistic coexistence of the paintings of nudes and music that are offered to the viewer, two arpilleras and also two works dedicated to the Lebanese violinist Ara Malikian stand out. “I knew him personally through my brother-in-law and I have attended some of his concerts. He is a man of great humanity, very open and emotional. I love the way he transmits his music to the children,” says Salazar, who recognizes his taste for the melancholy that the sounds of the violin awaken in him.

The compositions offered in Casa de Saturninita by the painter born in Carrizal on July 15, 1960 stand out for their figurative character. Salazar confesses that he is attracted to the human figure, “both with and without clothing, in movement or without, whether in nudes, musical performances or rural images.”

 

His paintings are an experiential dump of images extracted from his memory or, indistinctly, a reflection of photos or drawings with natural models, in which a very personal treatment of color stands out. The use of cold tones in musical works and warmer tones in nudes. “It is logical, he says, because the nudes, their gestures and their mobility, require warmer expressive colors, while the music has more open tones, more of a street touch,” he says.

 

That the exhibition in Saturninita is equally based on six paintings of nudes and another six of music does not contradict the plot and exhibition line of this work. “Music like painting are universal languages ​​that do not need a spoken or written language for their interpretation, enjoyment and understanding. Sound and color and shapes are universal languages. They are understood by anyone anywhere, because ideas are transmitted without specific languages,” Salazar argues.

 

The painter agrees that he pays greater attention to the body in works of nudes than in works of music, where the importance is given to the context. "It is logical. That is what the nude requires, because it does not have any tool to explain the expression, because the nude is shown devoid of any element, material or tool to support the image, because the body is already an expression on its own, while the music It requires the instrument and the image of it gives us the sensation of the sound. We distinguish and differentiate sounds through the image,” he states.

 

Luis Salazar Cruz uses acrylic on canvas or burlap and sweeps it with a spatula. “But not with a specialized spatula, but with those used to scrape paint or plaster walls, or even to lift hamburgers from a griddle,” he says.

 

 

 

He states that “art is a means of transmitting human values,” and that the objective of his painting is to transmit “what is seen and for viewers to feel what they see. I seek an intercommunication with them, that each one feels, perceives and draws their own conclusions about what they see, because when I paint I flee from literature and language to transmit.

 

At the opening of the exhibition he was accompanied by the delegate councilor for Culture and Education, Esther Delgado Sánchez, and by the delegate councilor for Roads and Works, Parks and Gardens, Eduardo Armas Herrera.

 

Luis Salazar, winner of numerous speed painting contests in the municipalities of San Bartolomé de Tirajana, Telde, Teror, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Mogán, began making his first competition drawings at the public school in his native Carrizal. In 1997, while studying high school at the INS Joaquín Artiles (Aguimes) he began his studies at the Luján Pérez Art School, under the direction of Professor Felo Monzón, and in 1987 he entered the Las Palmas Art School. He is currently a professor of drawing and painting at the Popular University of Aguimes, a teaching profession that he began in 1991 at the Popular University of Ingenio.