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Michael Salerno strives for the purity of the simple mark, the scratch, the unadulterated scribble, out of what I perceive to be a desire for an authentic experience of markmaking free of any concern other that its own self-exploration. Of course, Salerno has astutely modified the more primal concerns to at least engage the viewer with a blunt presence almost calm, and most importantly permanent.
The Lines, still really marks, are laid down by this artist as if they had wrought their own existence in a quest to be unlike the ink of other, wordier pens.
Mat Gleason, Editor, Coagula Art Journal
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The iconographic range of Salerno's drawings is surprisingly vast. Perhaps this is because the artist's quest is much like a time-traveler. In tapping the unconscious during the early stages of the creative process, Salerno's aim is to open up many and varied pathways into the universe-at-large. In order to do this, he has had to repudiate the stylistic limitations that governed a good deal of Surrealist and Abstract Expressionist automatism.
Salerno embraces a diverse iconographic lexicon in which he assigns equal value to abstract and figurative elements.
David S. Rubin, Curator of Visual Arts
New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center
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Mr. Salerno has been producing mature and important painting for a considerable period of time. It is clear that his work has been meeting with accelerating critical support and acclaim over the past few years. I believe that this rising interest is the result of a growing rocognition that his work participates importantly in the dialogue surrounding contemporary painting and that it represents a significant achievement. It is often the case that the times must be exactly right for the special contribution of an artist to be recognized. Mr. Salerno's work involves a unique relationship between automatic gesture and the visual field. Work in this area is beginning to emerge in the art world at this time, an area which Mr. Salerno has pioneered and in which he is fully developed.
Roland Reiss, artist, educator
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