Arts & Culture
Wisconsin artist displays talent in Carlsten Art Gallery
The Pointer
bhaig870@uwsp.edu
Rafael Salas, a painter from Wisconsin and professor at Ripon College, gave a lecture on his work last Friday, Oct. 24, to coincide with his and Eddy Dominguez’s upcoming show in the Carlsten Gallery.
Salas is influenced by landscape and the power of objects to evoke emotion.
“I want my subjects to take on a sense of longing and nostalgia,” said Salas.
His artist’s statement, which is a short text composed by an artist and intended to explain, justify and contextualize his body of work, helps the viewer to further understand where the artist is coming from.
It states, “Places, past and present, are always haunted, ghost stories. My art portrays these places, and the people that inhabit them. They are at first glance the most pedestrian of realities. But like memories, detail is slowly replaced with things less tangible. They become filled with emotion and mood with sighs and with longing.”
Salas has 12 pieces in the exhibition, painted between 2005-2008, with the majority being from this past year.
Salas’ paintings that deal with the Wisconsin landscape, such as a retirement home, old barn or wildlife, help viewers to relate to his paintings, especially if they’re from Wisconsin.
However it is his isolation of moments in time dealing with past, present and future that catch the viewers’ attention and evoke emotions and meaning.
Salas is an artist that believes his audience should interpret his work for themselves--he even refrains from titling his pieces, so as to make viewers think more about the painting.
Salas also uses a unique form of abstraction that induces further thought into his paintings.
“My abstract work is a new development; it’s one of my current goals to instill a mood of magic through painting distractions,” said Salas.
The Magic and Power Exhibition, featuring paintings from Rafael Salas and Eddie Dominguez, runs for only one month until Nov. 26. The hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. and Thursday 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.
