An artist who has spent the last twenty years travelling and painting has a style of his own. The forty four year old French artist and his wife spend their time between Paris and Marrakech.

Art and Technology

When asked about his art Saliot has said “I think art is a very overrated word,” the term he prefers for his work is craft. Like any craft he has to work to his utmost ability to create each piece, which could be one of the reasons no two pieces are exactly the same. While using the same mediums, canvas and oil, each piece is subtly different to any other and yet they are all recognisable as his work. Photographs are his source of inspiration and through internet sites, such as, tumblr, finds that there is always something waiting for him to find and recreate in oils. Although a user of the internet and all of its available imagery for his work one term that he does not like is ‘blog’ despite using the images he finds in a blog-like manner to produce pieces that are easily described as iconic snapshots.

If given a choice, however, he would rather listen to a record than use iTunes or Spotify but does not listen to music while working.

Style of painting

Unlike many artists who choose oil as their medium Saliot does not use palette knives preferring the use of brushes and his fingers to paint with. Labelling an artist as working within a particular style can create its own problems but, in the case of Saliot, and his painting color profile he could be best described as a being a hybrid of pop and classical realism. In some of the images he crafts he uses a style that makes the final image appear to be very slightly out of focus, which makes the piece all the more striking.

Working

During the first three months of 2013 Saliot created twenty pieces that show his interest in scenes taken from life and of images of beautiful women. His main studio is in Marrakech but does work, periodically, in Paris though he claims to spend most of his working time away from France. Although during the summer in his Marrakech studio he tends not to wear very much while working.

Living

Saliot is very much a family man who takes the meaning of family seriously. When he isn’t working he enjoys spending time in the ocean surfing or swimming and claims that his greatest achievement was that he “Crossed India from north to south on an Enfield Bullet.” So it would appear that he has a spirit of adventure as well as that of an artist. The adventure did not prevent him from finding inspiration and he created ten pieces after returning from India.

Commerce

Saliot had his own gallery in Paris between 1990 and 2000 then began showing his work in Marrakech and Paris, then Strasbourg, Leipzig Germany before beginning to have his paintings for sale at Saatchi Online and his own website.

Thanks to computer technology if more than one person wants a particular image Saliot is in the unique position of being able to offer one the original and the other a print. While there is a huge difference in the costs of the two types of image the original is always going to be the one to own.

Image copyright: ©Thomas Saliot