‘It’s not my art that’s violent,

 It’s life that’s violent.’

 – Francis Bacon

MARSHA LEDERMAN

PUBLISHED OCTOBER 24, 2012

 

There’s a bold, tortured beauty to the portraits of Andrew Salgado, and in London, where the Regina-born-and-raised painter has lived since 2008, collectors and critics are noticing. His new show, The Misanthrope, opened at Beers.Lambert Contemporary earlier this month, and by the end of the second day, more than half the paintings had sold. The work is complex and provocative in its technique and subject matter (there’s a portrait of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer). “I don’t shy from melodrama in my work,” says Salgado, 29.

 

But he has moved on, he says, from the dark turn his work took after he and his partner were assaulted at a music festival in Pemberton, B.C., four years ago. Minus two front teeth, Salgado painted a seething self-portrait, and this became a seminal moment in his work. “After that, my practice was really politicized,” he says.

 

“I’m a gay man, I’m an artist, and what am I painting and why am I painting it? I really think it’s important to ask yourself these pertinent questions in terms of making art. I always ask myself: What is it doing? And I realize that prior to that, my artwork wasn’t really doing anything; it was just decorative.”

Salgado has solo shows planned next year for New York and Ottawa, but a solo show at the Art Gallery of Regina this December has been postponed because he recently broke his arm (a studio accident). His homecoming will have to wait, but when it happens, it will no doubt be triumphant.

 

 

ANDREW SALGADO (b. 1982, Canada) holds an MA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art (2009), and is widely regarded as one of the leading figurative painters of his generation. He has exhibited worldwide, with solo exhibitions in London, New York, Tokyo, Miami, Toronto, Cape Town, Sydney, and throughout Europe.

In 2017, Salgado was the youngest artist ever to receive a survey exhibition at The Canadian High Commission in London. He has received extensive press both online and in print, and he frequently donates to charities and is a frequent advocate for LGBT causes. His works have successfully entered the secondary market with prices frequently doubling their estimates, including a piece at Phillips New York selling for five times list price in June 2021.

His works have been collected extensively, including The Oketa Collection, The Royal Bank of Canada Collection, The Masahiro Maki Collection, Government of Canada, The Jordanian Royal Family, Simmons & Simmons, the Esquinazi Collection, Edwin Oostmeier Collection, and more.

He has recently finished his first novel and has commenced work on a second book about the art industry. He lives and works between London, England and New Brunswick, Canada.

EDUCATION
2009 Master of Fine Art (Hons). Chelsea College of Art. London, England. (Distinction).
2005 Bachelor of Art, Art History & Theory. University of British Columbia. Vancouver, Canada.

AWARDS
2019 1606 Paintguide Residency, The Plant. (Leiden, Holland).
2015 PULSE prize. Pulse Miami Beach. [Shortlisted]2013 Lieutenant Governor’s Arts Award. Saskatchewan, Canada.
2013 Canada Council for the Arts. Independent Artist Production Grant.
2013 Saskatchewan Arts Board. Visual Artist Production Grant.

CURATION & WRITING
2023 Studio Lencas, Flower Boys text, Edji Gallery, Brussels (Belgium) 
2023 While You Were Sleeping, Hyangmok Baik solo text The Gasoline Pump Is Not A Toy, Beers London (London)
2022 Come Out & Play, Beers London (London)
2021 Future Fairs Christmas Market
2016 Guest Curator for Fresh Paint Magazine. Edition 12.
2016 Juror for Anthology. Charlie Smith London.
2015 The Fantasy of Representation. Beers London, UK. (August)

PUBLICATIONS
2017 TEN. Artist monograph.
2014 100 Painters of Tomorrow. Thames & Hudson. London, UK.

COLLECTIONS
Andrew’s work has been placed in numerous public and private collections internationally, including:
The Oketa Collection, Tokyo, Japan
The Royal Bank of Canada
The Masahiro Collection
The Jordanian Royal Family
The Government of Canada
The Saskatchewan Arts Board
Standard Chartered Bank
Simmons & Simmons Collection
The Dewitt-Barlow Collection
Markit Collection
The Esquinazi Collection
Victor Benady Collection
Nick Cave Collection
Mario Garcia Collection
Yi Xiao Collection
Woo Meng Collection
Steffen Heinze Collection
Weissman Collection

CHARITABLE WORK
Andrew frequently donates to a number of charities;
most notably The Terrence Higgins Trust (UK) where his works have raised
over £135,000 since 2014.

ART FAIRS
2023 Contemporary Art Now (CAN), Ibiza, Spain, Beers London (July)
2020 Art Toronto, Toronto, (online). Beers London (October-November)
2019 Untitled Art Fair Miami Florida, (w/ Sebastian Neeb). Beers London (December)
2019 Zona Maco, Mexico City, (various artists). Beers London (February)
2018 Cape Town Art Fair, (solo). Christopher Moller Gallery (January)
2015 Pulse, Miami Florida, (solo). Beers London (December)
2015 Volta, Basel (solo). Beers London (June)
2015 Art15, London (various artists). Beers London (May)
2015 London Art Fair (various artists). Beers London (January)
2014 Art14, London (various artists). Beers London (March)
2014 London Art Fair (various artists). Beers London (January)
2013 Toronto International Art Fair (w/ Robert Fry). Beers London (October)

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023 Tomorrow I’ll Be Perfect, SAATCHI Gallery, London (November)
2023 Good Things, PIERMARQ* Gallery, Sydney (April)
2022 The Lotus Eaters. MAKI Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (Oct.-Nov)
2022 A Never-Setting Sun. BEERS London, (April)
2020 Strange Weather. Beers London (October)
2018 Blue Rainbow. Angell Gallery, Toronto, Canada (October)
2018 Dirty Linen/The Nihilist’s Alphabet. Christopher Moller Gallery, Cape Town, SA (February)
2017 A Room with A View of the Ocean. Lauba, Zagreb, Croatia (April)
2016 TEN. Canadian High Commission. Trafalgar Sq, London (December).
2016 The Snake. Beers London (November)
2016 The Fool Makes a Joke at Midnight. Thierry Goldberg, New York (May)
2015 A Quiet Man. Beers London at PULSE Miami Beach. Miami, FL (December)
2015 This is Not the Way to Disneyland. VOLTA Basel. Basel, Switzerland (June)
2014 Storytelling. Beers London (October)
2014 Variations on a Theme. One Art Space. New York, NY (May)
2014 Enjoy the Silence. Christopher Møller. Cape Town, South Africa (January)
2013 The Acquaintance. The Art Gallery of Regina. Regina, Canada (October)

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023 13-A-Dozen, Galleri Sanberg, Odense, Denmark (May)
2022 Showstopper, Saatchi Gallery, London (September)
2022 Come Out & Play, Beers London, London (June) 
2022 PINK, Piermarq* Gallery, Sydney (April) 
2022 Paper! Beers London, London (January)
2021 Paperworks Vol. II, NBB Gallery, Germany (December) 
2021 John Wolf presents… Interconnected. Los Angeles, CA (October)
2018 Berlin Calling. Galerie Kornfeld, Berlin, Germany (September)
2018 Summer Salon. Beers London (June, July)
2018 The Therapist’s Office. 1969 Gallery. New York, NY (April)
2018 Secret Gay Box. Curated by John Wolf. Spring Break Art Fair. New York (March)
2017 75 Works on Paper. Beers London (November)
2017 O Canada. Beers London (June)
2016 35 Works on Paper. Beers London (September)
2016 Rema Hort Mann Charity Exhibition. Hort Family Gallery. New York (May)
2015 The Fantasy of Representation (curated by Andrew Salgado). Beers London (March)