Everything That Rises , 2010 - 2013
Painting - Latex on canvas
54 x 44 in
137 x 112 cm
Gerald Saladyga is a landscape painter, but not in the traditional sense. The concept of “landscape” signifies the cosmos for Saladyga – everything within, on and around the planet we inhabit. He began this artistic venture by painting light, as did the “American Luminist” school of painters in the mid-19th century, yet re-visualized within a contemporary framework. His paintings are meant to evoke the spectacle of the world around us, and to convey the joy experienced in viewing that spectacle.
Saladyga’s approach is to simultaneously depict the beauty and fragility of the earth’s atmosphere, crust and mantle. He believes that, as a painter, he can no longer rely on 19th-century formulas for painting landscapes that fail to recognize the immediate encroachment of natural and human devastation, urban sprawl and pollution. Saladyga views his work as a complement and continuation of the already established genre of landscape painting, while also serving as a political, environmental and ecological statement.
$7,500
