Cultivation: Marilee Salvator
Abundance, detail, 2024
September 7 – September 22 | Opening Reception September 7, 1pm–9pm
COOP is pleased to present Cultivation by Marilee Salvator. Cultivation features new works created from Salvator’s exploration of the symbiotic relationship with materials and the natural world. Each day, Salvator engages in a ritual of setting thin Kozo papers in the sun, weighted by found rocks and pouring homemade walnut inks onto them. This process captures a unique record of evaporation, recorded in the fibers, which are used to create prints. Salvator is fascinated by the reticulation patterns born from this process and the element of chance it embodies.
Salvator’s exploration extends into the micro-biological realm, drawing parallels between invasive plants and diseases. Combining historical and non-traditional printmaking approaches, Salvator pushes boundaries, creating installations and prints that unfold and grow organically. Recent prints feature bryozoans, digitally altering and combining colonies into printing matrices, exploring themes of repetition, pattern, hidden beauty, and exponential growth. Translucent Kozo paper, despite its delicate appearance, boasts resilience, mirroring our Earth's strength and need for protection. Manipulating bryozoan colonies reflects humanity's detrimental desire to control nature, with nature often responding in ways beyond our control. This imagery provides a visual language for exploring destruction, growth, and the interconnectedness of all life forms. Salvator deliberately seeks natural materials, incorporating them into intricate sculptural forms.
By submerging these natural objects in layers of recycled latex paint, Salvator aims to shed light on pollution and humanity's environmental impact, obscuring intricate details with each layer and encapsulating them in a transformative shell of discarded paint. Coating them in wax symbolizes a bid to preserve these natural treasures, highlighting the delicate balance between exploitation and preservation.
More about the Artist
Marilee Salvator is a distinguished printmaker and installation artist based in Kentucky. She earned her BFA in Printmaking from Illinois State University and her MFA from the University of New Mexico. Her artwork has been exhibited in over 30 solo exhibitions and in 140 group exhibitions worldwide, including in South Korea, China, Japan, Portugal, and North America. Salvator’s pieces are held in over 30 art collections, including the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and the Sakami Art Museum, Japan. Salvator has lectured and served as a visiting artist at numerous universities and art centers throughout North America. She has been an artist-in-residence at prestigious institutions including the RAIR Foundation’s Historic Berrendo Studios in Roswell, NM and the Sanbao Ceramic Institute in Jingdezhen, China. Salvator is currently an Associate Professor of Printmaking at Western Kentucky University and resides in Bowling Green, KY with her pets, Petunia and Juniper. Learn more about Salvator at www.marileedsalvator.com.