John Salvest
In 2020, after finding a stamp tree a few years prior, John Salvest created ALPHABETANICA, a series of 26 intricately stamped trees using each letter from the alphabet. After delicately carving the stamps, he meticulously blotted, tapped, and inked out precise shapes of trunks, branches, and leaves with repeated individual letters - C for Cherry, S for Sassafras.
C- Cherry and S - Sassafrass, archival ink on Lenxo 100, 36x26”, 2020
Salvest continued working with trees and stamps in 2023. For this new series, Salvest referred to two arbor encyclopedias, collections of information in their own rights, and stamps delicately carved into the shape of a leaf from a specific tree.
Utilizing only one stamp, Salvest builds large scale images of the tree grounded on pages from the encyclopedias.
Cherry, inked rubber stamp on paper, 66.5x44” 2023
Hickory, inked rubber stamp on paper, 66.5x44” 2023
Beginning with a love of wordplay and dry sense of humor, John Salvest’s object-based art explores issues of time and mortality and life’s paradoxes. He often employs literature and a sharp eye to create subtly funny perceptions into the human condition.
If only, wood, mirror and diet pills, 11x8x8”, 2023
Salvest works from collected objects specific for the installation or sculpture: he employs business cards, matches, bottle caps, and stamps for his smaller “objects,” as he calls them, while shipping containers, billboards, far more business cards, punching bags are incorporated in his large-scale projects and installations.
VANITAS, art business cards on wood, 80x130”
Peace, Officer, found wooden police batons, 48x42x42
Based in the Philadelphia area, Salvest is a former Professor of Art at Arkansas State University and a current thinker and maker. He received his B.A. In English from Duke University and an M.F.A. in sculpture from the University of Iowa. In addition to being reviewed and featured in numerous publications, such as Art in America, The New York Times, Art Papers and The New York Examiner, Salvest is the recipient of various awards and grants including two National Endowments for the Arts Fellowships and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. His notable public art projects locations include the Cannon Center for Performing Arts in Memphis, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Grand Arts in Kansas City.