During February, Fig Tree Gallery features Dixie Salazar’s show, Impermanence. Impermanence refers to the transitory nature of all things, as the artist explores the theme of loss and grief.
Salazar employs a technique she calls painted collage as a means of utilizing found images and scraps of visual textures she rescues from many different sources. The process is a means of transformation and resurrection, mirroring the theme of the show: finding redemption and renewal from the dark well of grief in order to “metabolize suffering into something beautiful and ultimately sacred.”
Salazar is an author, activist and educator. Her work has been described as rich in the color and iconography of her Spanish heritage with a passion for life.
Her paintings are a combination of flowing forms, vivid color and strong design elements, often imbued with mystery and ambiguity. Her work sometimes accesses found objects and appropriated images from old advertisements, coloring books and other historical sources.
She works in many media including oil painting, acrylics, watercolor, collage and photography.
Salazar is also a successful poet and published author, publishing her first novel, Limbo in 1995, and three volumes of poetry, Hotel Fresno, Reincarnation of the Commonplace and Blood Mysteries.
On Feb. 5, as part of ArtHop, Fig Tree Gallery (644 Van Ness Ave.) features a reception with the artist from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
At a closing reception on Feb. 28 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., Salazar will read from her poetry.
