Presente Plusquamperfecto, 2017

Salustiano   New & remarkable Artists

Salustiano (Salustiano García Cruz) is a contemporary Spanish artist born in 1965 in Seville, Spain. A major figure in contemporary figurative painting, he is internationally recognized for his monumental portraits of great emotional intensity, where the purity of drawing, the mastery of color, and a streamlined aesthetic dialogue with the heritage of the Italian Renaissance, Mannerism, and Spanish baroque painting. His work, immediately recognizable thanks to its famous monochrome red backgrounds, explores beauty, youth, fragility, spirituality, and the human condition, while developing a timeless pictorial language that transcends cultural or religious references.

After studying at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Seville, Salustiano quickly oriented himself towards figurative painting based on the observation of the human body and the search for a balance between tradition and modernity. His work is deeply influenced by the masters of the Italian Renaissance, notably Fra Angelico, Piero della Francesca, Antonello da Messina, and Raphael, but also by Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Zurbarán, whose sobriety, light, and psychological power he admires. These influences nourish a work where precise drawing, luminous flesh tones, and minimalist compositions become the essential elements of his plastic vocabulary.

Realized mainly in oil on canvas, his paintings are distinguished by a technique of extreme finesse. The faces and bodies seem suspended in a timeless space, isolated on monochrome planes that reinforce the presence of the model. The bold colors, particularly the red which has become emblematic of his work, do not constitute a simple background but fully participate in the emotional charge of each composition. The absence of décor concentrates all attention on the gaze, posture, and expression of the figures, inviting the viewer to a silent contemplation where sensuality, innocence, and spirituality mingle.

Since the early 1990s, Salustiano has regularly exhibited in many galleries and institutions in Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, the United States, Mexico, South Korea, China, and Taiwan. Among his solo exhibitions are notably The Triumph of Painting at Opera Gallery New York (2015), Salustiano at Opera Gallery London (2016), The Innocents at Opera Gallery Paris (2017), The Ephemeral at Opera Gallery Dubai (2019), The Longing at Opera Gallery Geneva (2021), as well as several exhibitions organized in Seville, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

His works are today in many private and institutional collections around the world and are represented by several international galleries, including Opera Gallery. His work benefits from constant recognition in the international contemporary art market, attracting collectors and institutions through the universality of his pictorial language. By reconciling the tradition of the great masters with a deeply contemporary vision of the human figure, Salustiano occupies a singular place in contemporary figurative painting, where portrait, oil on canvas, figuration, Renaissance, beauty, minimalism, color, spirituality, and emotion constitute the foundations of a work of remarkable coherence.