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Susan Saladino

A desperate concern for animal welfare is a sentiment patterned in the fabric of all Susan Saladino's artwork. Over the years she has observed the human action as it roams between a celebration of animals and brutality towards them. She has drawn on this observation earlier in her career to create paintings expressing reverence for their lives and protesting cruelty. In her current mixed media sculpture series, Saladino employs materials from the earth to reference conservation concerns. Surface texture of the hand built clay figures is created using natural materials found in the environment. Twigs sheared from culled trees symbolically imply the loss of habitat. Birds in some of the work represent all animal life. Her figures very often are blindfolded suggesting the human inclination to turn away from certain realities that perhaps are uncomfortable or may require change. Change is needed.

Saladino has come to believe that as stewards of this planet, we cannot afford to turn a blind eye. The kinship we have with all life "must be expressed in action, since belief is no longer enough."