Joseph Salzano
My work explores the fluidity of fine art, fashion, and interior design, using their visual vocabularies to create new forms that foreground instinct. Working with aesthetically coded materials such as leather, fur, patterned textiles, and industrial scrap, I engage in sculptural processes using latex and resin casting as well as spatial compositions rooted in draping, balancing, and re-contextualizing. My process begins with the materials themselves, allowing visual intuition to guide how they are gathered, arranged, and transformed, rather than any predetermined function or disciplinary logic.
My practice is driven by texture, color, pattern, and form. I source my materials from scrap bins, and my method begins with collecting these fragments and letting their visual interactions dictate how they are positioned. The arrangements emerge from placing elements in relation to one another, allowing that instinctual ordering to become the simple grounds for the work’s existence. By suspending classifications of symbolism, utility, or the body, instinct can act without hesitation. Individual objects gesture toward garments while disregarding the figure, and installations echo domestic interiors. Working fluidly between disciplines allows for immersion into the clichés of certain subcategories, using their familiar codes to highlight the instability of classification itself. My approach invites viewers to consider what happens when we stop trying to name things and instead encounter them as unfixed and instinctual, recognizing that the visual world is far less orderly than the labels we use to contain it.