"I prefer the reaction of ordinary people [over] the academic because those reactions are honest. The reaction is not specific, but it must take a moment. [It] taps into the common experience that is being pointed to in the work." JS
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2013
oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2013
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2013
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2013
oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012
oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012
oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012
oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012
oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012
oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012
oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012
oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012
oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2010
Oil, 48x48, 2011
mixed media, 6x6, 2015
Mixed Media, 18 x 12, 2015
Mixed Media, 12 x 18, 2014
Mixed Media, 18 x12, 2014
Mixed Media, 12 x 9, 2014
Mixed Media, 12 x 18, 2014
Mixed Media, 12 x 18, 2014
Every face shows a story, even if unwittingly or unknowingly. Joanna Salska is interested in how the face portrays trauma or “cracks”, as evidence of the disjuncture between an individual psychology and social conventions. She manifests cracks visually as moments of repetition and fragmentation in familiar objects such as doll’s heads, masks and models.
Salska’s paints on square formats. These surfaces are both landscape and portrait, accounting for the discrete and vast locations of the human subject. Salska views her work as a kind of “psychological excavation project”, focused on finding the unmediated self within the compromised self of social expectation.
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2009
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2009
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2009
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2009
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2009
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2009
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2009
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2010
Oil, 48x48, 2010
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2010
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2010
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 96, 2010
tempera and oil on masonite, 56 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 96, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 96, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 96, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 96, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 96, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012
Salska's production is intuitive above all else. She is driven toward a subject and obsessively studies the matter in media. She oscillates between forms and union of those forms in a symbiosis of geometry and gesture.
Tempera and oil, 48 x 48, 2013
Tempera and oil, 48 x 48, 2013
Oil, 48 x 48, 2013
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2013
Collage, 5.5 x 8.5 2016
Oil, 48 x 48, 2013
Mixed Media, 5.5 x 3.5, 2014
Mixed Media, 4 x 7, 2014
Salska has always made small collage studies, using cut up photographs and geometric scraps of painted paper to work through visual ideas. The scraps of paper are like stones for a stonemason: their nature informs the maker as to how they cohere into unified compositions. The resulting collages are both finished works in themselves, and studies that are translated into paintings.
Mixed Media, 13 x 17, 2014
mixed media, 12 x 18, 2014
mixed media, 13 x 17, 2014
mixed media, 12 x 18, 2014
Mixed Media, 12x18, 2014
mixed media, 12 x 18, 2014
mixed media, 18 x 12, 2014
Mixed Media, 13x17, 2014
Mixed Media, 13 x 17, 2014
Mixed Media, 17 x 13, 2014
Mixed Media, 12 x 18, 2014
Mixed Media, 18 x 12, 2015
Mixed Media, 12 x 18, 2015
mixed media, 12 x 18, 2014
mixed media, 12 x 18, 2015
collage, 5.5x8, 2016
mixed media, 5.25 x 5.25, 2015
mixed media, 12 x 18, 2015
mixed media, 12 x 18, 2015
mixed media, 12 x 18, 2015
mixed media, 12 x 18, 2015
Mixed Media, 12 x 18, 2015
Mixed Media, 12 x 18, 2015
Salska's work is primarily figurative with an emphasis on emotive gesture and color. Salska believes that gesture is the ultimate expression of emotion; pulling with it the extension of the subconscious.
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012
oil on masonite, 48 x 96, 2012
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 96, 2011
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2013
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2010
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2010
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2009
tempera and oil on masonite, 36 x 48, 2009
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2008
Mixed Media, 4 x 6, 2014
Salska's portraits attempt to capture the true emotive experience of her subjects – some essential quality or characteristic that is not readily visible to the average encounter. Using photographic imagery as source material, the timely precision of the snapshot often illuminates these moments of the essential nature of a subject. Milliseconds caught in time have exposed parts of people that could never be known in real time. Of course, these moments do occur in real time – a shape, a light, a color, an expression sparks. It is these moments of exposure that activate Salska to painting. This process is intuitive, collaborative, and energetic.
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2013
tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2013
Tempera and oil, 48 x 48, 2013
Tempera and oil, 48 x 48, 2013
photograph on Hahnemuhle archival paper, 5 x 7”
photograph on Hahnemuhle archival paper, 5 x 7”
photograph on Hahnemuhle archival paper, 5 x 7”
photograph on Hahnemuhle archival paper, 5 x 7”
photograph on Hahnemuhle archival paper, 5 x 7”
photograph on Hahnemuhle archival paper, 5 x 7”
photograph on Hahnemuhle archival paper, 5 x 7”
photograph on Hahnemuhle archival paper, 5 x 7”
