BIOGRAPHY - Ken Salaz (Born 1970) 'Like Painting A Speeding Bullet,' Landscape Master Ken Salaz Depicts Tactile Feeling Of Nature, Sun
Forbes article by Natasha Gural
Although he was born in Bakersville, California, Ken Salaz spent the first five years of his life near Guadalajara, Mexico. The four Salaz children not only grew up bilingual, but also with an uncommonly broad perspective on the world. Returning to the US in 1975, the family briefly moved to Phoenix and then to Tucson where Salaz’s paternal grandmother lived. This early exposure to his father’s and grandmother’s Yacqui culture would prove to be a significant influence in Salaz’s painting; the landscape of Arizona has likewise remained a touchstone.
The family moved again in 1977 to Huntington, West Virginia, and it was there that the seven-year-old Salaz first realized that he wanted to become an artist. A case of the flu and an earache had kept him home from school, and being bored, he started to add muscles on his figure drawings. As he worked on his project, he felt a sense of recognition that art was his particular strength; and resolved that he would become a “serious artist”. When his father gave him a drafting table for his eighth birthday, he proclaimed that he would become “better than Picasso” and produced a watercolor of a bird in flight to prove his point.
Salaz’s parents were supportive of their son’s interest in art—and in magic which also fascinated him—throughout his school years. The public schools in Huntington offered standard art classes, but young Salaz was interested in exploring non-formulaic possibilities, especially those that would yield a sense of astonishment, wonder and beauty. For him, this was one of the connections between performing magic and painting, and he was rapidly developing both of these skills.
He graduated from high school in 1988 and left West Virginia with a scholarship to study art at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. He stayed only a year before moving on to Cooper Union in New York city where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1992. During his summer breaks from Cooper Union, he had begun to travel the world, and after graduation, he spent three years traveling, performing magic and learning everything he could about the magical arts. From Asia to Central and South America, he absorbed esoteric knowledge from “shamans, gypsies, psychics, pickpockets and thieves.” [i] In Europe, he also spent hours in museums, copying the master painters of the western tradition; as he remarks, it provided him with his “real education in painting.” Not surprisingly, he was also drawing and painting all the regions of the world that he visited.
When he returned to New York city in 1993, he began to sell some of his paintings, almost exclusively figurative work at the time, to a small group of collectors; some of those individuals still remain patrons. As a young artist, however, Salaz was also working at a variety of jobs, including cabinet making, bartending, and performing magic. Gradually, his work as a magician became his primary source of income, and for the next decade, Salaz traveled extensively, building both his reputation and skill as a magician—and painting when he could. The balance between magic and art has always been at the heart of Salaz’s career.
By 2008, Salaz was a well-established magician with an increasingly impressive client list. He performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to rave reviews resulting in a notable boost in his bookings. A year earlier he had met his future wife Camie, who is also a painter, and by 2008, his career as a artist reached a significant turning point when he received a Hudson River Fellowship from Jacob Collins’ Water Street Atelier.
Collins established the Water Street Atelier in the 1990s as a classical art school; in 2007, he created the Hudson River Fellowship with the goal of building “a new movement of American art, modeling itself after the artistic, social and spiritual values of the Hudson River School painters. It will bring together the reawakening enthusiasm for the old American painters, the vigorous but unfocused scene of contemporary landscape painting and the urgent need for a renewed reverence for the land. By bringing back the skills and spirit of the pre-impressionist landscape painters the program will give much needed direction to a new generation of painters.” [ii]
For Salaz, one of the earliest recipients of the fellowship, this opportunity to spend nearly a month focusing exclusively on landscape painting triggered another moment of recognition. As he explains it, “The fellowship solidified the direction I wanted to go. It brought together the language of classical painting and the wild reverent spiritual relationship to nature and the sun.” The two cultural streams of Salaz’s life and experience were united: the western classical art he had been studying for years merged with the Yacqui traditions of his father’s family that were grounded in nature.
In 2009 he received a second Hudson River Fellowship and embarked on an arduous study of Greek philosophy and transcendentalism. Plato’s concept of ideal beauty as a reflection of the temporal beauty of the world finds an American expression in the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman. For the transcendentalists and their counterparts in the visual arts, the wild landscapes of New England could also be transformed into Platonic embodiments of ideal beauty and harmony. For Salaz, a raw plein air sketch reveals the underlying ideals of natural beauty in the form of a finished painting that emphasizes the humility of human beings in the presence of nature.
Not surprisingly, Salaz and his wife left New York city to settle in the Hudson River Valley where their son was born in 2010. Painting became increasingly central to Salaz’s life, and after an unsuccessful venture with some television producers, he shifted the balance between magic and art. Increasingly, he began to reserve blocks of time for painting in the Catskills and traveling to the coasts of Oregon and Washington as well as making yearly visits to Arizona. In 2008, he received a Marchutz Scholarship to study in Aix-en-Provence in southern France, and he has continued to spend extended periods of time there.
Salaz is still a working magician, but his time is now devoted primarily to work in the studio, teaching and being a father. He is also a senior fellow at the Hudson River Fellowship where he teaches other fellowship recipients every summer. The painters of the Hudson River School, particularly Frederick Edwin Church, have become a sustained influence on his work as has the painting of Ivan Shishkin, one of the Russian landscape artists associated with the independent group known as The Wanderers. [iii]
Exhibitions and awards have been abundant since Salaz turned his attention to landscape painting. In addition to participating in numerous juried exhibitions, he was a finalist at the Art Renewal Center Salon in 2013; and he received the Grand Prize at the Cranford, New Jersey Plein Air Competition that same year. In 2014, he was awarded an Honorable Mention at the Art Renewal Center’s International Salon.
Looking at the future, Salaz voices an interest in exploring the possibility of incorporating figures into his landscapes. Combining these two genres would allow him to integrate his love of both figure painting and landscapes. Teaching is likely to be an important part of the future as well, and a new book on classical landscape techniques and philosophy is scheduled for publication in 2018. Although Salaz describes the last decade as a whirlwind, he seems to have emerged from it having fully embraced that sense of recognition that characterized that seven-year-old boy determined to be a “serious artist”.
Janet Whitmore, Ph.D.
[i] See Salaz’s website, Astonishmentinc.com
[ii] See http://www.jacobcollinspaintings.com/teaching.html
[iii] In Russia, this nineteenth century group was called Peredvishniki. They broke from the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg in 1863 to form a cooperative artists society that would emphasize images of daily life and bring art to the people throughout the Russian empire.
2008 - 2011 Grand Central Academy
2010 - Robert Moore Plein Air workshop.
2006 - 2008 - Art Students League Instructor - Nelson Shanks
2004 - 2006 - Leonid Gervitz of the Repin Academy - Private Instruction
1989 - 1992 - Cooper Union
1988 - 1989 - Carnegie Mellon
Teaching, Fellowships, Grants and Invitationals 2014 - Instructor at Grand Central Academy’s Husdon River Fellowship
2013 - Cranford Plein Air Invitational
2012 - Sagamore Hill Plein Air Invitational
2011 - Dana Gallery Plein Air Invitational
2010 - Hudson River Fellowship - With Jacob Collins, Edward Minoff and Travis Schlatt
2009 - Hudson River Fellowship - With Jacob Collins, Edward Minoff and Travis Schlatt
2008 - Marchutz Scholarship - Aix En Provence, France.
Memberships Oil Painters of America
California Art Club - Out of State MemberLaguna Plein Air Painters Association
2014 - The American Landscape Juried Show: Beverly Street Studio, Staunton, VA, Juror - Steve Doherty
2014 - ARC International Salon - Three landscape paintings were selected as Finalists.
2014 - Honorary Prize of Excellence - Ridgewood Art Institute, Juried Show
2014 - The American Landscape: A Juried Exhibition. Juror - Steve Dougherty, “Plein Air” Magazine
2013 - Grand Prize - Cranford NJ Plein Air Competition, Juror: Peter Trippi of “Fine Art Connoisseur” Magazine
2013 - Honorable Mention - Salon International Greenhouse Gallery, TX, Juror: Daniel E. Greene
2013 - ARC Salon, Landscape Painting Finalist
2013 - Gruber Gallery, New Paltz, NY - Selected American Landscape Exhibition
2013 - Limner Gallery, Hudson NY Juried Show.
2013 - San Diego Art Institute International Juried Exhibition
2013 - Lynchburg Academy of Art, Juried Show, VA
2013 - Honorary Prize of Excellence - Ridgewood Art Institute, Juried Show
2013 - Connecticut Academy Juried Exhibition
2013 - Boonton NJ Plein Air Exhibition
2012 - Sagamore Hill Plein Air Exhibition
2014 - Cover of Plein Air Magazine - Featured Artist - Interview on Artwork and Painting methods.
2013 - Fine Art Connoisseur - Artwork displayed as recognition as Finalist in Arc Salon International Competition.
2013 - Fine Art Connoisseur - Artwork displayed and recognition for Grand Prize at Cranford Plein Air Competition.
2011 - Plein Air Magazine, - Interview with Ken Salaz , Jacob Collins, and Edward Minoff
AVAILABLE WORKS | |
 Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Over Hudson Valley Oil on panel 8.75 x 14 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Moonrise Over the Hudson Oil on canvas-panel 12 x 16 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Early Morning Giant, St. Mary Lake, MT Oil on canvas-panel 8.75 x 14 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunrise Over Walden Oil on panel 10 x 16 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Over Hidden Lake Oil on canvas-panel 11 x 14 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Over NYC from the Palisades Oil on panel 16 x 20 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Swan Song Sunset - Sunset Over the Palisades Oil on panel 22 x 28 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Over Delaware, Barryville, NY Oil on canvasboard 14 x 11 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Over the Palisades Oil on Artefex Panel 16 x 20 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Hearts on Fire, 2019
Oil on panel 10 x 12 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Transcendence, Niagara Falls Oil on panel 19 x 31 3/4 Signed | Sold Works |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Over Lake Oil on canvas on board 12 x 16 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) There's Always Hope - View of NY from Dobbs Ferry, Summer 2021 Oil on canvas on board 12 x 20 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Marsh Lake Oil on canvas 18 x 24 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Return of the Zodiac Oil on panel 11 x 14 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Evening Sail After the Storm, Long Island Sound Oil on panel 8 x 10 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Marsh Lake Oil on panel 12 x 16 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sundial Peak, Daytime, 2019
Oil on panel 9 x 12 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Dancing Dragontails Sunset, 2019
Oil on panel 8 x 12 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Niagara Falls, 2019
Oil on panel 6 1/4 x 10 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) St. Mary's Lake, Montana (Study), 2019
Oil on panel 7 1/4 x 11 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Golden Trails Sunset, 2019 Oil on panel 9 x 12 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Over Palisades Oil on panel 6 x 8 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Majestic Landscape - St. Mary's Lake Oil on panel 15 1/5 x 20 Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Moonrise over Sundial Peak, Utah Oil on panel 9 x 12 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset - Dobbs Ferry Looking South to NYC - 10.23.18 Oil on canvas-panel 12 x 20 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Over the Hudson Near Olana (Homage to F. Church) Oil on canvas-panel 8 x 12 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset from Ocean Cliff - Newport, RI Oil on canvas-panel 12 x 16 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Over Nyack - 10.13.17 Oil on canvas-panel 6 x 8 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Catskills - 4th of July Oil on panel 9 x 12 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Over Nyack - 7.16.17 - 2 Oil on panel 6 x 8 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset over Nyack - 7.16.17 Oil on panel 9 x 14 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Arizona Brilliance, Sunset Oil on panel 8 x 6 inches Signed; also signed and titled on the reverse |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) A Quest for Understanding Oil on canvas 23 x 30 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset at Ragged Point, CA Oil on canvas-panel 12 x 16 inches Signed; also signed and titled on the reverse |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Catskill Sunset - 9.2.16 Oil on panel 8 x 12 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Rainbow in the Desert - Catalina Mountains near Tucson Oil on canvas-panel 10 x 12 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Silent Witness - Glacier National Park Oil on canvas 20 x 24 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Montana Sunburst - Glacier National Park Oil on canvas-panel 9 x 11 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) The Day I Met You - View: Sunset over Nyack from Tarrytown Oil on canvas 10 1/4 x 19 1/2 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset over Palisades - 9.7.16 Oil on panel 8 x 12 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) 9.8.16 - Sunset over Hudson Oil on panel 8 x 12 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset over Jackson, N.H. 7.14.16 Oil on board 8 x 12 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset on Hudson - 8.5.16, Looking North from Tarrytown Oil on board 61/4 x 13 1/2 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset over Jackson, N.H., 7.17.16 Oil on canvas on board 8 x 12 inches Signed; also signed and titled on the reverse |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset over Palisades, 6.23.16 Oil on canvas-panel 7 x 11 inches Signed; also signed and titled on the reverse |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Arizona Sunrise Easter 2016 Oil on board 6 x 8 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Over Nyack - 6.30.16 Oil on board 6 x 9 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Over Nyack - 7.7.16 Oil on board 8 x 12 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Nyack Sunset - 5.27.16
Oil on board 6 x 8 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset South to NYC - 7.5.16
Oil on board 8 x 12 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Oregon Coast, Yachats Oil on board 6 1/8 x 81/4 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) La Napoule, France (plein air) Oil on board 8 x 12 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Amber Waves, Sunset Oil on panel 6 x 9 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Floridian Sunrise - Palm Beach, Fla. Oil on board 6 x 9 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunrise Palm Beach Oil on board 12 x 16 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Looking South to NYC Oil on board 12 1/8 x 15 3/8 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Stone Barns Pasture - Westchester, NY Oil on canvas on board 9 x 12 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Over Palisades, Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. Oil on canvas on board 6 x 9 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset over Palisades - Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. Oil on canvas 22 x 30 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Family Sunset, Catskills Oil on canvas on board 6 x 8 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Silver Sunset Over Sailing Ships Oil on canvas on board 6 x 9 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) The One True Love Sunset Oil on canvas on board 6 x 8 inches Signed; also titled and dated on the reverse |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) The Dancing Phoenix, Sunset (Nyack, NY) Oil on canvas on board 6 x 9 inches Signed, also signed, titled & inscribed on the reverse |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Over Catskills, Hawk's Nest 2 Oil on canvas on board 6 x 8 inches Signed, also signed titled and dated on the reverse |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Over Catskills, Hawk's Nest, New York Oil on canvas on board 6 x 8 inches Signed, also signed titled and dated on the reverse |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Over Catskills - Hawks Nest 1 Oil on canvas on board 6 x 8 inches Signed; also signed and titled on the reverse |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Catskill Sunset 1 Oil on canvas on board 6 x 8 inches Signed; also signed and titled on the reverse |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Over Palisades, NY 2 Oil on canvas on board 6 x 9 inches Signed; also signed and titled on the reverse |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Looking South Over Manhattan, from Dobbs Ferry Oil on canvas on board 6 x 9 inches Signed; also signed and titled on the reverse |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset over Palisades, NY 1 Oil on canvas on board 6 x 9 inches Signed; also signed and titled on the reverse |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset over New York City from Dobbs Ferry 1 Oil on canvas on board 6 x 9 inches Signed; also signed and titled on the reverse |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Forgiveness, Greenwich Point Park, CT Oil on canvas 24 x 36 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Final Lights Over Hunter Mountain Oil on canvas on board 6 x 9 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Forgiveness 1 (Greenwich Point Park, CT) Oil on canvas on board 12 x 18 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Pink and Gold Sunset Oil on canvas on board 6 x 9 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Final Sunburst, Hunter Mountain Oil on canvas on board 5 x 8 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Dragontail Sunset Oil on canvas on board 4 1/4 x 7 1/8 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Oregon Coast - Yachats Oil on panel 9 x 12 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Storm King Oil on canvas on board 6 x 12 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Catskill Mountains, New York: Sunset Oil on panel 5 x 8 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Sunset Over Nyack Oil on panel 6 x 8 inches Signed | Exhibited Works |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Fire and Ice - Sunset Over NYC, 2019
Oil on canvas on board 12 x 9 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) The Eternal Now, St. Mary's Lake, Montana, 2019
Oil on canvas 30 x 40 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Flume Falls Oil on panel 16 x 12 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Fresh Water Sunrise Oil on panel 18 x 24 inches Signed |  Ken Salaz (Born 1970) Meditation Falls: Eros Flows Through My Veins Like A Wet Soul Oil on panel 18 x 24 inches Signed |
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