Tammy Salzl’s simplest of gestures features a series of watercolour portraits that capture the complex psychological narratives of the sitters. Calling them ‘beautiful parasites’, Salzl depicts fellow artists, friends and family, striving to draw the viewer in with an affective experience that slowly evolves to alter the viewers perception. Salzl paints figurative studies of what it means to be human in today’s world. She paints the stories that separate and isolate us as the other, and the commonalities we all share through an obsessive and often disturbing focus on posture and colour and flesh. She uses paint, oil or watercolour, as metaphor for our own bodies subject to forces of gravity time and nature.

Tammy Salzl is an Edmonton-born, Montreal-based painter who received her MFA in Painting and Drawing at Concordia University (2014). Recent exhibitions include two person shows at Latitude 53 in Edmonton and FOFA Gallery in Montreal, solo shows at Union Gallery in Kingston, AKA Gallery in Saskatoon and solo show with residency at SlaM Gallery in Berlin, Germany. Salzl is a Tedeschi Scholarship recipient and has received grants and residencies from QALC, KIAC Centre in Dawson City, The Banff Centre and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. Salzl’s installation The Cleansing, which recently debuted at Circa POPOP in Montreal, will be presented as a special project during Art Toronto in October 2015, alongside a solo presentation of her works.