Mexico atrae, endulza y deriva visiones tan frescas como magnéticas. Sus paisajes múltiples, sus seductores personajes, sus ciudades enmarañadas y su cultura en hiesta sacuden sensibilidades con fuego que nose retrae jamás. Aquí en estas latitudes su empeños plásticos, tienen verdad de poesia, y erudición de investigador solitario. Salazar ha creado ese credo de singular es versículos y ha una posición pnivilegiada.
–Federico Ramos Sánchez, Director, Museo Casa Diego Rivera, Guanajuato, México
I met Roland Salazar over 25 years ago after he made contact with me, as CEO of Aura Galerias in Mexico City. Aura Galerias opened 34 years ago in 1982 and it is now one of the most respected art galleries in Mexico.
Salazar told me he was to move to the city of San Miguel de Allende and if I would like to see his works. I was a bit hesitant since most art produced in SMA is mostly commercial, not good and simply boring. After reviewing his paintings I congratulated myself for giving Roland the opportunity to show me his art since these were colorful, extremely interesting and to put it mildly, very good. He explained to me that he was using “Chapote” (Mexican term for common tar; and I asked him if he knew where the word chapopote came from and proceeded to explain to him that it came from the Aztecs who used “Chapopotl” in some of their buildings.
Aura Galerias has been representing Salazar ever since and I have followed his very interesting proposals and great paintings during the period he calls “The Mexican Years”. I am happy to say that the singularity that his works bring is always refreshing and rest assured that Roland Salazar will be represented in Mexico for years to come, where art plays an intrinsic part of Mexican life.
–Guillermo Zajarias W., CEO, Aura Galerias. Mexico D.F. 2005
La obra de Roland Salazar Rose, nos impacta por Ia emoción que despierta en nosotros. Heredero del Expresionismo Austriaco (Oscar Kokoshka, Egon Schiele,) así como el Grupo Cobra (Karel Appel…).. Sus personajes y sus paisajes evocan fantasías gestuales pletóricas de color que de alguna manera nos muiestran lo vigente de ésta corriente plástica. En Maestro Salazar, la forma se transforma en la esencia del color y el gesto comunicándonos una nueva visión, una nueva de nuestros paisajes y magueyales.
–Luis Garcia Jasso, CEO, Galeria Vértice, Guadalajara, ]alisco, Mexico, 2005
Salazar’s paintings reflect the underlying energy of the Mexican psyche. There is strong abstraction in the Mexican Vibrations Revisited series; bold color applied, removed and drawn through represents form and figure that can only be defined as archetypal. The Compelling Visions series leave this viewer stunned by the powerful forms and unusual visages, engaging, not repelling. The paintings in Strange Attractors seem to juxtapose form in the night or images that might present themselves on isolated walks in the country. Dark colors mixed with bright colors and scratched through drawing make viewing these images a powerful and awakening experience.
–John Latham Knapp, curator, painter and sculptor who taught at Boston College, New England College and at the Manchester Institute.
Salazar’s paintings in his Mexican residency are based on the insights and visions he gained from the Mexican people, their culture and land. His work not only reflects the textures and colors of its landscape, actually incorporating the natural tar chapapote into his canvases, but it also engages him in the discovery and power of myth. Myth explains the world, it informs culture. Salazar’s personal visions of native deities, strong black lines bathed in the warm brown tones of chapapote, and the simple lines and muted colors of many of his landscape renderings reflect this elemental connection of the natural world to culture and myth.
–John Ripton, PhD, Curator, History and Latin America, Fellow, Columbia University and Chair St. Bernards School/Rutgers University
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Roland “Salazar” Rose is one of the most unique and committed artists painting in the world today. Unlike so many in the commercial world of art today, “Salazar” is an artist in the truest sense of the word. No prints or copies of any kinds are ever made of his paintings; each is an original. Like many of the great masters, although he can paint in the realistic style, he prefers painting in the abstract-expressionistic genre, which allows him to paint from the depths of his emotions.
–Chip Taylor, President, Chip Taylor Productions