Souther Salazar

New York City

Portland-based artist Souther Salazar currently presents Souvenirs, his fourth solo exhibition at Jonathan LeVine Gallery.

Works in Souvenirs were inspired by the ‚Trading Tortoise‘, Salazar’s recent collaboration with his wife, Monica Choy. In 2012, the pair created an interactive art installation in the form of a tortoise-shaped trading post, which they took on tour, bartering unique objects and stories at locations in over 30 different cities across the country. During their travels, the artists explored America, exchanging tiny treasures and sharing adventures along the way.

During ‚Trading Tortoise‘, Salazar explored the connection between personal memories and collected objects, items that serve as tangible reminders of places, people and events. Organizing his memories of the project into imaginary collections, Salazar created artworks to represent his own visual souvenirs, referencing some of the experiences. Drawings of trucks, gas pumps and power lines take on anthropomorphic qualities while a series of small sculptures constructed from found objects are presented in curio-like shadow boxes—one contains a series of miniature water towers in varying shapes and sizes, and the other features a group of figures representing some of the people Salazar met, the things they traded and their relationships to those objects.

Themes in Souvenirs include travel, being on the road and the American landscape, re-interpreted through the artist’s signature whimsical style. The paintings contain winding roads and narratives of far off destinations with many interest points dotting the path along the way, serving as a metaphor for storytelling as well as the journey of life, itself.

Souther Salazar

Jonathan LeVine Gallery

May 18 – June 15, 2013
529 West 20th Street, 9th floor
New York, NY 10011
USA

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