Souther Salazar’s highly imaginative work reinterprets the world into a mythical place full of carnivals, lost cities, dinosaurs, and other fantastical creatures.  In his upcoming show at Jonathan LeVine Gallery titled You Come Too, Souther continues to share the joy and excitement of adventure through his unique sense of storytelling while referencing Robert Frost’s poem The Pasture.

Here Souther chats about the inspiration for his third solo show at the gallery, hidden keys, and Robert Rauschenburg.

You Come Too suggests that a more personal narrative is at play this time around. What’s the inspiration behind your latest exhibit?

I think it doesn’t happen often, where you can stop and look around and actually realize that you are in the middle of a very positive point in your own life, something you’d like to share. I don’t mean an easy time, or a time of success, because I’ve been actually going through a good amount of trials and tribulations in my daily survival, but a time of clarity, a highlight in personal outlook.  Nothing seems insurmountable when you are in love. I found myself in a whirlwind romance, and I left the city behind to live in this quiet little house on the river with my ladymate. No matter what goes wrong I can look out at the river and the trees and the sky and feel the love swirling inside me, and I know everything is great. I wanted to put as much of those feelings as I could into this show.  It can be a rough world out there, and there is so much art these days maintaining a cool distance, keeping it obtuse and less personal and offering little to connect with.  I wanted to take advantage of my joy to put something uplifting out into the world, and to make work that is accessible and inclusive instead of distancing.

 

 Are the mythical worlds depicted in your paintings referencing a particular city (or cities)? Or are they purely an invention of your own?