It’s October 2020, and who doesn’t have a little cabin fever? We’re prescribing a dose of time travel mixed with some magical realism in the form of Andrew Salgado’s Strange Weather, opening October 17 at Beers Gallery in London. Two years since his last solo exhibition in the UK, and close to a year after a successful solo presentation at Untitled in Miami, Andrew Salgado will be presenting his fourth solo show at Beers. Almost six months after the originally scheduled date, the Canadia-born artist will present arguably his strongest, most elaborate exhibition to date, presenting some 12 works from an all-new, much larger body of work.
Originally entitled In the Springtime We Go Dancing and scheduled for May, the show was postponed for obvious reasons, but also, by the request of the artist himself. "Admittedly, even prior to COVID, I was asking the gallery if I could postpone it. I wasn’t ready," Salgado tells us honestly about how Strange Weather took shape. "Increasingly I need more and more time to let paintings rest, resonate, and respond to other works that are being created. Also, there is a narrative building in my head and I have to ‘answer' that story."
And while he did get that extra time he needed, the lockdown caused him to take physical distance from his practice. "When COVID landed everything felt so bizarre, otherworldly, almost dreamlike," he tells us about the way the time away from the studio found its way into some of the most intricate and focused works we've seen from him. "I took time off to work on other projects, but I was literally out of the studio for the longest stretch I have ever had since I began." Also, while providing endless emotional inspiration and driving his urge to create, the circumstances in which he couldn't work also served as the direct inspiration for the title of the show. "I was thinking strange times, strange temperament, strange weather. So the weather is a euphemism or metaphor for a bigger idea. I think it’s a mysterious and esoteric title in the sense that this is a similarly mysterious time."
As a self-proclaimed ‘maximalist’ his practice involves layers and layers of new imagery being added onto the main format. Often reworking the entire compositions, this results in heavily textured, and exceptionally multicolored work in which a single oil pastel mark can carry a great significance. "I think it actually allowed me to streamline ideas," Salgado tells us how his approach changed with the new pace he was forced into. "It gave me more time to think critically, become impartial, and more objective. I literally re-did two pieces. Like, put the box cutter thru the first iteration and started from scratch. I cut three or four and switched the ambiance and feel of the show entirely." 
The final, large body of intensively gestural paintings is ranging from works on paper to whooping 9-foot wide monumental piece The Young Spartans, named after Young Spartans Exercising by Edgar Degas. Such references to classic art can also be seen in Asubha, where the light of candles evokes the glow of van Gogh's Starry Night, or through countless use to traditional art tropes such as still life assemblages, an abundance of vases, floral arrangements, or archetypal poses of mostly nude subjects. Along with those, one can notice nods to the artist's love for cinema through a reference to Meliés' iconic A Trip to the Moon in Creature Comforts, as well as many other personal symbols and nods that form Salgado's own dictionary. Evolving from painterly portraits the works have become less autobiographical, more focused outward, and increasingly stylized, and are now appearing almost mythical while keeping a high dose of playfulness, humor, and nonconformity. Whether looking at collaging of different techniques or materials, the occasional non-square formats of the work, quirky wooden additions to the frame, or red painting extending onto a frame mold itself, one can feel the dedication and attention to detail that was put into this body of work. "I love a bit of cheek and sensation so the install will be bright cadmium red carpeting with hundreds of plastic oranges on the floor," the artist reveals his plans for the install which will extend the ambiance of the work into the gallery space. —Sasha Bogojev
