For works in progress; see Studio Blog

Paulo Sallis’s art practice acts as an introspective negotiation between himself and the physical world. Fascinated with, and fixated on, his own individualistic and irregular encounters with material, constituting themselves within the realms of self-conditioned belief and an objective personality; whilst simultaneously playing with themes of value, consumerism, ecology, ontology, affect theory and auto-theoretical storytelling. Working simultaneously in textiles and oil paint; an intentional dialogue between the two mediums is proposed and crafted. Usually, one will inform the other formally, causing a series of visuals to almost appear as an iconography of a particular form or set of forms. This reminds Sallis of the 'Ancient Eygyptian Tradition' of creating 'copies' of the mumified individual; in stone, on the sarcophagus, or in paint or sculpture. If the physical body was damaged during their 'rest', these 'copies' would act as an equal embodiment for said body. The term sculptor, translating to 'he who keeps alive'. 

Looking through the lens of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; where behaviours have been entrenched into his visceral cave-man-brain psyche since youth, he honours the metaphysical and vibratory connections that he perceives to have with certain things. Behaviours such as an inability to discard what others would deem as waste or clutter. Sallis insists that to honour the vibration, is not the same as to honour the thing, the sensation must be honoured first.

Sallis focuses not on the explicit, but on the subtle vulnerabilities that can be caught in a moment with a material; moments that are unintentional, clumsy, but impressions that will act as a proxy for his body in his absence. These proxies act as emodiments of spirit without need for religious justification, whilst still proclaiming that a body is present. Spirit, Sallis uses within the context of brain energy, of the mind's influence. Flotsam and jetsam rising up from the visceral level, the caveman brain, to inform a negotiation with material which is un-inhibited by conscious deviation. Sallis is aware that biases and conscious instances will be present at times, he refers to this in the way of tension, or tense areas, within a work; a playful battle between the obsessive and the visceral.

Sallis, refers to digital interference, in his work, as tools, as a sewing machine would be refered to as; a different but an equally consuming labour.  His prerogative, is yes concerned mostly with his physical vibratory relationship with materials; but is also concerned with how the printed image or drawing can either disrupt or further heighten this relationship to objects. Objects, or what author Jane Bennet would denote as “Thing Power”. ‘A transcendental moment that happens between human and non-human bodies, an object transcends its ‘objectivity’ through an unconscious change in awareness and perception, that we experience, of "things’”.