'Picasso' by Toby Salkin
Toby Salkin @ Topanga Canyon Art Studio Tour 2018
Amidst a glorious Saturday Afternoon in the 2018 Topanga Canyon Studio Tour, Toby Salkin proudly reflected the sunshine and cheerfulness of Southern California living with her art. Aside from the staunchly confident use of color – and a noticeably effortless use of oranges and reds – there is the playfulness with her use of lines to create an unmistakable post-impressionistic expressionism. In other words, the orthodox and academic usage of lines to make reality concrete and glorious via this attempt was first gently blurred with the Impressionist advance to then open up the possibility for greater imaginative renditions of the world; to draw creative inspiration of what reality is from the source of the creator rather than from the world around her. Ms. Salkin, then, is a quintessential demonstration of the proper use of imagination, wherein she takes a reality and more than embellishes, but edifies it with a sugar tooth sweetness powdered onto us. It is Fauvism at its finest.
We know surreptitiously we are observing in her works not a true correspondence or effort at imitating reality, but bravely an advance at unpeeling the hard-outer shell with its stains and scrapes and noxious odors to reveal what permanently lies beneath it – endless beauty. And with this resuscitation,-or in my vocabulary authentication-the audience is reoriented with their smiles of uncanny bliss. Ms. Salkin furthers her aims of smiling at the world with the cheeky use of texture with the nipples in Seated Women in Green, not to mention its indelible medley with pseudo-cubistic influences. It’s this serious treatment of the world as something to be played with and enjoyed with any perspective which is the hallmark of all great artwork in its proper orientation of the human mind, making her small exhibition befitting of the sunny day.