Enrique Salvador

Planta Libre presents 2. Declaración de una columna vertebral, a solo exhibition by Enrique Salvador.

The scenes in Enrique Salvador's work barely contain themselves within the canvas; they are an open portal, a crack, a wound that overflows into itself. By the time we reach them, the initial difference has dissolved, and without offering explanations, it hurls us into the latency of conflict, into the midst of blood still gushing, with no mercy or intention to soften its brutality—affliction is its absolute present.

Fictitious and surreal, these images are not meant to incite violence; they exist in the artist's dreamlike world, a space that allows for emotional and visceral exploration through the arts. Enrique's paintings release an outpouring; they are the claustrophobic scream provoked by patriarchal conditioning that shapes our sensitivity, affections, and desire—a theme that becomes especially incisive for a queer person like the artist.

Amid these dismembered and contortionist figures, there is a longing to flow and connect, to find freedom within a body and a reality that feel overwhelming. This relationship with torment is shown with total disinhibition and surrender; Salvador not only plays with the lines that separate pain from pleasure but also allows himself to discover what lies inside the sore, digging into it and letting it transform him. With that transparency, he confronts us with questions about our own relationship with pain and viscera, with desire and restraint. In a way, he invites us to acknowledge processes of change—that which lies inert within us—so that new things may be born.

2. Declaración de una columna vertebral takes us on a journey where these oppositions not only coexist but also intertwine and complete cycles. There, what we believe to be hidden finds a way to manifest itself...

—Mayté Miranda