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Studio Visit: Leigh Salgado vs.the Jet Set
By Keith Dugas
Airports are obviously not the ideal setting in which to place fine art. Sure they are awash with eyeballs, but the eyes are attached to frenzied and/or exhausted psyches with singular focus: being somewhere else. This hasn’t stopped nearly every transportation hub in the country from attempting to inject a little culture into the experience. Many years ago David Cross did a great bit, about a 9 panel series of paintings at the Seattle airport, which fairly summed up the sadder aspects of this peculiar trend. This summer however, people traveling through LAX will have a chance to see a caliber of art not generally found in such places; the sublime, intricate work of Leigh Salgado.
It’s easy to go overboard with superlatives when writing about Leigh’s art. “Sensual”, “opulent”, “delicate”, and “flowery” are commonplace in articles about Leigh. But while those terms may hit on the feminine grace inherent in Salgado’s paper transformations, they do little to convey their power. Lace, petals, and Victorian lingerie aside, these are robust, potent works of art. They have been carved out, painted and burned by a strong, commanding hand. The mystique here may be equal parts Betty Friedan and Marilyn Monroe, but it never panders. I’ve heard tales of people being uncomfortable, and even aroused by Leigh’s art. The extent to which the work is erotically charged has, as always, much more to do with the viewer than the artist. Would the art incite your libidinous id less if it had been made by Tom Wesselmann, or Lari Pittman? If there really is any abstraction here, it’s in the way the work is absorbed by it’s audience. Leigh’s art demands consideration from a multitude of perspectives, ultimately drawing you in so close that you’re breathing on the work. So, maybe it’s that intimacy, that seduction, which unsettles people.