Salvatore of Lucan’s Show of Himself

Pallas Projects/Studios are pleased to present  Salvatore of Lucan’s Show of Himself the fourth exhibition of our 2018 Artist-Initiated Projects programme.

My Ma asks my Nan
What do we have tonight?
My Nan replies “We’ve yesterdays Eastenders to watch
And Casualty is on at 8”
I tell them to get a life
They tell me to get a job
Sometimes I think how great it would be to be from a posh family
But then I might be studying business
And the only way I’d be able to have fun
Might be in Thailand

Hello, Iʼm Salvatore. I am from Lucan. I am mixed race: half Bangladeshi and half Irish. However, I have never met my Bangladeshi father. I was raised by my mother, a single parent, who lives with her mother (my Nan) and my younger sister. I went to school at CBS Lucan and then to NCAD, where I studied Fine Art Painting.

I make work about my own life, mainly figurative domestic scenes. I always want to present myself as accurately as possible. Throughout my life, I have been asked where I am from; to which I have always replied ʻLucanʼ. This is why I have recently decided to call myself Salvatore of Lucan instead of Salvatore Fullam – to represent myself more accurately. The paintings consist mainly of self-portraits and portraits of my family and others who are close to me. A friend recently described my work as ʻabjectʼ and, having looked the word up, I thought, ʻyeah, thatʼs not far offʼ.

I feel that, in the past, I have been kinder to myself than to others. I hope, in a way, to put this right by making a self-portrait with less grace than I have previously represented myself – binging on junk food, or playing FIFA on the Xbox – a painting that would earn the title of the exhibition: Show Of Himself. Another painting will address my father, whom I do not know. In love, we must respect the distance between one another, the same is true in painting a double portrait. I imagined this painting to look similar to My Nan and My Ma, but this time representing my father and me. The distance between my father and myself: the difference between absence and thin air. So it's a hard painting to make.

Press: TOTALLY DUBLIN, Artsdesk: immaterial – pallas projects.

Exhibition text: An accompanying exhibition text by Kevin Breathnach will be available in the gallery.

Event

Artist-Initiated Projects at Pallas Projects/Studios is an open-submission, annual gallery programme of 12 x 2-week exhibitions taking place between April and November 2018, in the context of a gallery space with a dedicated tradition towards the professional development of artists in a peer-led, supportive environment. This unique programme of funded, artist-initiated projects selected via open call is highly accessible to artists, with a focus on early career, emerging artists and recent graduates. Projects are supplemented with artists' talks, texts, workshops or performances, and gallery visits by colleges and local schools.

Artist-Initiated Projects aims to act as an incubator for early careers, and support artists' practices at crucial stages, providing a platform for artists to produce and exhibit challenging work across all art forms. The model of short-run exhibitions with a relatively short turnaround time of 3–6 months is an alternative to the normal institutional model, where the process of studio visit to exhibition can take several years. Shorter lead-in times allow the programme to be quick and responsive, reflect what artists are currently making, and encourage experimentation and risk-taking.