Painting in series
By Guillermo Zajarias

Lecture & slide show
By Roland Salazar

Fri, May 4, 5:30pm

Teatro Santa Ana

Biblioteca Pública

Insurgentes 25

50-peso donation



On Friday, May 4, as part of “Painting in Series,” Roland Salazar Rose presents a slide show and talks about the paintings he has created in San Miguel over the past five years.

“Painting in Series,” Salazar says “has been one way that I can present what a particular body of work has meant to me. By designating 10 to 20 or more paintings as representative of a specific idea, trend or even technique, it has made it possible to conduct a dialogue with the viewer.” Starting in 2000 he began experimenting with chapapote, an asphalt found in Mexico. He uses this “tar” as a painting medium by adding petrochemical mixtures to it and applying it to paper, Masonite or canvas. He wrote on his website, “Chapapote, from the earth of Mexico, and its brown-tone appearance in my paintings, speaks of Mexico, the land and the people. It also calls attention to our worldwide chemical dependency, especially on oil, and its pollution. Chapapote has now become a household word due to the sinking of the tanker Prestige [some irony in that name] off the Galician coast in 2002.”

In the series “Roland’s Friend 2002: Aztec Deities” the artist shows 11 Aztec gods on 50x25-inch paper. “The gods came to me,” he comments. “I did not search for them. There are hundreds of gods in Aztec methodology. I chose 11 as the ones I wanted to represent. As figurative abstract representations, they, in a way, attempt to replicate the images displayed in the sacred codicils. I didn’t research the god Tonatiuh (He Who Makes the Day) to determine how he should be shown in the painting. There is no relationship, other than accidental, between the named god and the painting. I used the deities as a tool, enabling me to concentrate on the abstract elements in each figure that developed as I did each piece.” The work in this series is to be donated to a Mexican museum.


In his “Estrangement” series, he moves in another direction. The exhibition was to be called “Erotica.” Erotic art became a subject of interest for him. For this series of 12 paintings, the artist uses Stonehenge paper with chapapote, oil pastels and spray enamels. The series seeks to answer the question “What is it about certain kinds of erotic art that makes it good both as art and as something erotic? What are the elements of eroticism in erotic art, particularly good erotic art?” With his assistance, Rose revised the way in which he was to present the show “Erotica,” which later was re-titled “Estrangement.”

For more details about his artwork, check his website: www.salazargallery.com.