​​❝ Reality is in the painting, it is certainly not in the painting ❞

 

​Utilising oil painting to explore the emotions surrounding human connection, Elías Peña Salvador’s work interrogates how those emotions relate to identity.From the personal to the political and sociocultural, he expresses the multitude realities held by people and, in doing so, finds his own voice to channel those stories.​

 

Salvador’s work examines painting’s ability to combine forms and ideas, making it a powerful catalyst for emotion and a means to represent complex feelings. Blurring the boundaries between figurative and abstract, harmony and chaos, intention and chance, his work balances the ebb and flow of life and its subjectivities.​Salvador frequently returns to drawing to serve as the architectural bones of his work, seeking a freedom to apply paint in a less conscious way - his intention is ‘to reach the moment where the wave breaks to reveal what exists beyond the figurative’. He leaves this revelation open, an invitation for the viewer to interpret.