Creating Artful Moments Through the Blink of An Eye: Astor Salcedo
For Spanish-born artist Astor Milan Salcedo, creating artful moments is a process that evolves over time and incorporates many surfaces to facilitate the expression of human existence and the many emotions and experiences that go with it, often only experienced and seen in the blink of an eye and lost. As a visual documentarian Salcedo finds a way to record these fleeting life moments and experiences.
Before starting his career as an artist, Salcedo explored a journalistic background, inspired by his passion for storytelling and documenting impactful events in the world, he explored documentary filmmaking. As the creative director, he received the German TV award called ‘Deutscher Fernsehpreis’ for the documentary on the atomic bomb.
Salcedo focuses on other modes of exploring the world around him and does this through color and textures, and his manifesto sets the tone for all his artwork: ‘Art speaks to the soul to bring enlightenment and wholeness’. He uses oil paint as his primary medium on surfaces like primed canvases, paper, prints, photographs, and some of his personal favorites include unprimed canvases and raw linens.
Salcedo creates abstracted compositions with the interplay of colors and textures created from the oil paint, this is evident when viewing pieces like the ‘Red Queen’ (oil on unprimed linen) and ‘Black Queen’ (oil on unprimed linen) from his collection ‘The Unmasking’. These depict a myriad of intersecting colors all competing for their place on the surface, almost reminiscent of the current pandemic and the collective emotions shared by everyone, Salcedo states, ‘I came to realize that my perception of people, circumstances and even art had changed due to the pandemic’.
As a visual storyteller, Salcedo focuses further on the spectrum of human emotions and expression, oftentimes his own journey of finding existential equilibrium, through color and composition, this is noticed in his work SONO (oil on unprimed canvas), which means ‘I am’. The viewer will notice how the oil paint interacts with the linen, creating columns and splashes of multi-colored paint, almost a textural echo of the artist’s own internal processes.
Salcedo’s compositions on overpainted photographs explore the artist’s involvement as more than just a spectator of experience. He overlays brush strokes on photographs, connecting two worlds as one, this is evident in one of his compositions from his ‘Nature Series’, where, as if wind-swept, splashes of white and blue paint become a part of the white and blue clouds from the photograph, not only creating a sensual experience, but also visual depth.
Creating Artful Moments Online
Salcedo’s abstract compositions have been a part of numerous exhibitions worldwide, places like Germany, England, and the United States. The artist has prominent showings through Trinity House Paintings, including a number of sold-out shows and successful sales. As most of the world has taken to working online during the worldwide pandemic, so too has Astor Salcedo taken his exhibitions online.
He is the founder of the BLINK Art Group, an online platform that connects artists, art lovers, and art collectors. The vision is to make the world of art more accessible and transparent to the rest of the world, as well as to share knowledge about art in all its forms. What makes BLINK unique is that it houses online exhibitions of various prominent contemporary artists like Verena Schöttmer, Armin Völckers, Daniel Hörner, Jelle Wagenaar, Max Dunlop, including Astor Milan Salcedo.
Beyond exhibitions, the BLINK Art Group also helps anyone who wants to start their own art collection. With art advisors available for various types of art, collectors can have a personalized and tailored experience. As a co-founder of Yacht Art Management with Tilman Kriesel, Salcedo has been able to advise collectors who need art with a maritime focus.
Summary
Astor Salcedo is an artist of many talents, and draws inspiration from the world around and within him, creating narratives that shift from personal to global and vice versa. His work can be viewed online through his personal website, as well as the Online Exhibitions on the BLINK Art Group website, additionally, he is also involved in managing high-end art on Mega Yachts, with all the information about the detailed yacht art services.