A visceral Canadian vision crosses the Atlantic

Across the street from Trafalgar Square in London, a little gallery is working to change international impressions of Canadian art. The Canada Gallery at the Canadian High Commission is small by gallery standards – and tiny in comparison with its neighbours such as the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. But its ambition far outsizes its square footage.

Since Canada House reopened two years ago following a major renovation, the gallery – now with improved lighting and a warm wood ceiling – has hosted shows by important contemporary Canadian artists including Jeff Wall, Ian Wallace and Mark Lewis. More recently the exhibition Floe Edge featured contemporary art from Nunavut. A visitor expecting traditional, even staid, Canadian artwork might have been surprised to encounter works such as Nala Peter's sealskin lingerie or a pair of sealskin stilettos by Nicole Camphaug.

Right now the space has come alive with TEN, a mid-career survey of work by Saskatchewan painter Andrew Salgado. The show is made up of large-scale works dating back to 2006, marking 10 years of Salgado's professional career.

"To have the Canadian government say okay, this is somebody that we want to reward with this sort of acknowledgment? It's validation," Salgado says during a recent interview from London. "And on top of it, it makes me want to really prove myself."

At 34, Salgado is the youngest artist to have a solo exhibition in this space. Born and raised in Regina, Salgado did his undergrad at the University of British Columbia and moved to London, where he attended the Chelsea College of Art and earned his MFA.

Salgado is a highly skilled painter, whose works are bold and colourful, vibrating with life and emotion. They're dynamic, gestural and figurative paintings of people, but to call him a portrait painter feels inadequate. "It's much more complex and interesting than that," says David Liss, who curated the exhibition at Canada Gallery.

"He's trying to express more than just the physicality of humans and trying to get at something different," continues Liss, curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Toronto. "He's trying to really express these feelings, thoughts, emotions and experiences in this very visceral way."

In 2008, Salgado and his partner were beaten in broad daylight at a music festival in Pemberton, B.C. – a hate crime; Salgado is gay. The violent event marked a turning point in Salgado's career. His work took on a new urgency and became much more politicized.

Bloody Faggot (2011), in which Salgado revisits the same subject matter as a 2008 self-portrait that emerged from the Pemberton Festival attack, was the one piece Salgado insisted Liss include in the show of the approximately 35 works he suggested. The black-on-black painting is dark in every way; Salgado's mouth is a pit of blackness punctuated by the white of the few teeth he had left.

"I think my work has kind of rebounded off that pivotal moment in my life from 2008. I've kind of made my career as a response and reaction to that. And from a bit of darkness from that era, you see a lot of growth," Salgado says, speaking from the gallery that represents him, Beers London, which is run by fellow Canadian Kurt Beers.

"I think you look at the works from 2015 and '16 and there's a lot of humour, there's buoyancy, there's a lightness," Salgado continues. He has also begun working with collage and mixed media.

In Black Dionysus (2009), another self-portrait, Salgado's face is a burst of colours surrounded by darkness. The work was made while Salgado was at Chelsea – an unhappy experience, when he was discouraged from painting, even mocked over it. Miserable and not interested in the video art his instructors were urging him to make, he almost dropped out at the three-month mark, he says. He now feels validated; Salgado says he is the only one of his class of 60 who is still practising art.

"Still practising" doesn't quite get at his level of success. His shows sell out. He has a large studio in London, a new monograph (also called TEN, launched at the opening of the exhibition) and now a prestigious show at Canada House. And he's making an impact. The other day, a dancer passing by on his way to the theatre, stopped in, took in the show, and sat and wept, moved to tears by Salgado's work.

"The art world is a really vicious place and often you feel like … nobody's paying attention. So to be recognized like this, it's amazing. But it's also super humbling," Salgado says. "It makes me want to go back to the studio with greater resolve to push it to the next level, do new things."

A show by Vancouver-based artist Rodney Graham will follow Salgado's exhibition this spring and over the summer, a Canada 150-tied show will feature works by a group of artists examining the maple leaf as a symbol of Canadian identity. In the fall, Toronto-born, London-based Turner Prize nominee Janice Kerbel will show new print and graphic work.

"The gallery acts as a window, revealing the array of vibrant contemporary art produced by Canadians from across our country," said Canada's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Janice Charette, in a statement to The Globe and Mail in which she calls Salgado's work "bold and fearless."

"At every turn," she adds, "we have cause to celebrate that greatest of Canadian exports – our creative talent."

Andrew Salgado: TEN is at the Canada Gallery at the Canadian High Commission in London until Feb. 28.