Mason Saltarrelli - Cartographer's Tunnel
Cartographer’s Tunnel
Certain abstract paintings live as maps towards our interior labyrinth. Through their silent direction we might arrive into our deepest accommodations.
Not far from our front door on 60th Street towards the Hudson River was a hill which led to a tunnel. We would enter through a hole in the metal fence. Passing trains rolled by. People lived there. Each visit was mysterious.
On one occasion a man walking on the train tracks stopped and spoke with me as he was headed deeper into the tunnel. His eyes were experienced. The conversation was brief. I am grateful for his words.
Moments of surprise ferry oxygen to my internal incandescent candle. These paintings are some of its light.
— Mason Saltarrelli
Mason Saltarrelli navigates a bridge between beings and spirit by engaging with a succinct 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.
Mason Saltarrelli (b.1979, New Orleans, LA) graduated from Fordham College Lincoln
Center with a B.A. in Photojournalism in 2001. His work has been shown at Turn
Gallery, NYC, Timothy Hawkinson Gallery, Los Angeles, Ca, 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