Gigi Salij

I am a printmaker, painter, and collage artist, living and working in Venice, California.

My work is predominantly in the pop vein, strongly influenced both by the pop artists of the 1960s and 70s, and by our current visual culture.  A lot of my work engages political themes—especially gun violence, sexism in American culture, and excessive consumerism—although some is not nearly so serious.

My piece in this show, “Mambo Italiano” (2022), is a more playful piece: it’s kind of a visual free-association.  I’m an admirer of James Rosenquist’s Spaghetti paintings and lithographs … which always make me think of curly red hair … which reminds me of Titian’s most famous redhead, the Venus of Urbino … which puts me in mind of another Italian beauty, Sophia Loren … who is credited (probably incorrectly) with saying, “Everything you see, I owe to spaghetti.”  This diptych jams these images together, framing and cropping them to suggest meaning—but also, I hope, inviting viewers to connect the dots in whatever ways they prefer.