“Underneath the oak trees, through the cracked streets, while flowing between photographer and walking participant, my observations and internal experiences of joy amplified as I watched people’s inner jubilation grow into an outer intoxicating display of embracement and dancing led by the grand marshals and a marching brass band.

 

My recent experience in a New Orleans second line was a restorative kaleidoscope. These paintings are organized as an appreciation of that day, a thank you to all present for so beautifully reminding me that pausing is presence and joy is wondrous, especially when someone dances with a shoe on their head.”

                                                                                                                      -Mason Saltarrelli, January 2025

 

 

Mason Saltarrelli tells stories. His paintings absorb and compress time, distilling years of reflection. He transposes people, travels, and events into abstract paintings, a language that transcends the dry recitation of sequenced events to capture the immediacy of emotion, imbuing memories with urgency. Silent narratives are an essential medium giving rise to works that sometimes linger in his mind for years or decades before being articulated into paintings, visualizations revealing nuances that elude words. In Saltarelli's paintings, the essence of experience becomes paramount, kept vivid through a cadence of forms and hues. The shapes are mostly organic, yet never seem to suggest a representation of figures or landscapes fully. At times they hint at being an unknown calligraphic language, but never become text, always remaining abstractions, unfixed and suggestive. They feel full of details but are constructed with an economy of marks, only what is essential, frequently emphasizing the negative space of the canvas. The story told in each painting accumulates over time; each exhibition becomes a chapter in Saltarrelli’s growing autobiography.

 

Mason Saltarrelli (b.1979 New Orleans, Louisiana) navigates a bridge between beings and spirit by engaging with a concise collection of discovered and abstracted characters and syllabaries. Painting and drawing intuitively—his expressiveness articulates continuing, woven motifs which invite unlimited exploration from the watcher. Saltarrelli’s jubilant work transforms human, animal and inanimate beings into buoyant embracing remembrances in an ever-evolving carousel of shape and color. His work has been shown at Turn Gallery, NYC, The Mass, Japan, Meessen De Clercq, Belgium, Guild Hall, East Hampton, Ace Hotel, New Orleans, Marvin Gardens, NYC, Galleri Jacob Bjorn, Denmark, Shrine Gallery, NYC, and Gallery 9, Australia among many others. Saltarrelli currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.