Alexander Salazar
Pronouns: He/him/his
Age: 50
Birthplace: Houston, Texas
Instagram: @sdartadvisory.com
Q: Tell us what it’s like living in America today as an LGBTQ+ artist and how it is impacting your life and your work.
A: Many years ago, I started a series of paintings about healing. I was in my 30s and battling serious depression and one day in my outdoor studio I took gallons and gallons of black paint and aggressively released any emotion I was holding back and threw it on the canvas. Hours later, I sat in silence and stared and cried with what was looking back at me — a canvas full of chaos and, ironically, balance. Now titled “The Impact Series,” it reminds me to stop and heal during emotional chaos — something that continues to be a pendulum in my life as a gay Mexican American artist. I moved to San Diego in 2001 from Boston for the summer and never left. It’s been a very long summer you might say. Now, 22 years later and after three failed long-term, serious and “madly in love” relationships, I find myself single and 50. My “goals” of having a loving husband and children are now focused on relearning how to love myself and taking care of my three boys — my dogs Toby, Lucky and Charlie.
Alexander Salazar in front of an acrylic painting titled “Flow” at his new gallery SD Art Advisory in Mission Hills.
(K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Q: Tell us more about yourself and/or your work.
A: I am the CEO and curator of SD Art Advisory, a new gallery in Mission Hills. As a gay artist, I have been gifted an outlet — a way to heal my innermost pain and find peace — a feeling that many LGBTQIA+ individuals struggle to find, especially when attacked for being true to his/her them/their identity within a country that wants too hard for them to seem perfect to the rest of the world. My shifts in style in my art is a reflection of my life in every single way/day moment that I live. As such, I’ve been creating a series of paintings that started during COVID — “Hearts Of Hope And Love.” These paintings are reminders that we survived a pandemic and that we have “hope and love” within ourselves, within our own hearts. But lately, I have been climbing up a ladder and the roof of my house to once again throw black paint. I close my eyes and throw my stress, anxiety, depression, fear, pain, hurt, loneliness, sadness and watch it hit the canvas, filtering the chaos and creating a perfect impact that resonates with what it sometimes feels like to be me: a gay middle-aged single Latino man. But as I climb down the ladder, I smile and walk away knowing that the thoughts will never control what it’s like to be alive and healthy and loved by so many friends and family in San Diego that have supported my life as an artist. My art will always remind me that healing never ends — just like being gay will never end.
Alexander Salazar in front of an acrylic painting titled “Flow” at his new gallery SD Art Advisory in Mission Hills.
(K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune)