7 Contemporary Painters to Follow If You Like Salvo
As soon as Italian artist Salvo died in 2015, his 1973 work Salvo è vivo (“Salvo is alive”), a marble slab etched with its title, was flipped over, following instructions written by the artist. The reverse side was inscribed with a simple phrase: Salvo è morte (“Salvo is dead”). This act—one final conceptual gesture—captures the irreverent spirit of an artist whose influence has resonated long after his death.
Born in 1947 in Leonforte, Sicily, Salvo (whose full name was Salvatore Mangione) moved to Turin as a child. There, he would eventually become associated with notable figures in the Arte Povera movement. Sharing a studio with Alighiero Boetti, Salvo initially worked across conceptual and sculptural media. He brought his cheeky, self-referential style to photography (where he portrayed himself with a Salvator Mundi halo, for instance) and sculptures (once engraving his own name in the colors of the Italian flag into a white marble slab).
However, by the mid-1970s, Salvo had decided to embrace a new medium, which he is now best known for: painting. Above all, he intended to test the limitations of painting, which, at the time, was scorned by his peers in conceptual art.
Salvo’s painting style
In the years since Salvo’s death, the art world has witnessed a surge in interest and value in his works. Just two decades ago, his work rarely exceeded four figures. Now, his paintings are a mainstay at art fairs worldwide—and his painting Il Mattino (The Morning) (1994) sold for HK$8.7 million (US$1.1 million) at Christie’s Hong Kong last year, setting the artist’s auction record. Several extensive museum exhibitions have also focused on his work, such as the extensive show “Arrivare in tempo (Arriving on time)” at the Pinacoteca Agnelli in Turin, Italy. According to Sarah Cosulich, director of the Italian museum, Salvo’s pivoting to painting “never implied a switch but only an evolution.”
“Salvo’s painting is both an extension of his conceptual early approach as well as a wish to go against it, as he soon became bored with the limitations of ‘black and white art’ in pristine white galleries,” she said.
Throughout the 1980s, Salvo honed his characteristic style with expressive use of color in simplified landscapes, mystical ruins, and capriccios (architectural fantasies). His paintings often feature earthy tones with bursts of luminous colors to create ethereal, unpopulated landscapes. These works are painted with broad, deliberate brushstrokes, focusing on the subtle gradation of color and light.
“Salvo has become a reference artist for those who appreciate contemporary painting, thanks to his peculiar technique,” said Antonio Addamiano, director of Dep Art Gallery, which (among other galleries) represents the artist following his death. “His work is characterized by an extreme absence of details compensated by great attention to color, its expressive potential, and the construction of essential and minimal forms.”
Today, many contemporary artists draw inspiration from his peculiar approach to color and form. Here are seven artists that fans of Salvo should know.
Daisy Dodd-Noble
B. 1989, London. Lives and works in London.
London-born artist Daisy Dodd-Noble was employed in the oil and gas industry in Dubai and Iraq when she realized a drastic change was necessary. After a year of planning, she enrolled at the New York Academy of Art. There, she was taught by figurative painter Inka Essenhigh, who “encouraged students to work from their imagination,” Dodd-Noble told Art of Choice. Inspired by this advice, Dodd-Noble began to paint unpopulated, cartoonish landscapes characterized by vibrant colors and ethereal, exaggerated forms.
Two pink clouds and two pink islands (2021), for instance, depicts a surreal, softly contoured landscape under a gradient sky transitioning from teal to a gentle mauve, with two pink clouds floating above stylized, colorful islands dotted with totem-like trees. This surreal take on the natural world echoes Salvo’s landscape paintings with their otherworldly use of color.
In June 2024, Dodd-Noble mounted a solo exhibition with MASSIMODECARLO in Paris, “Truth of the Forest,” featuring work inspired by the lush landscapes of the Costa Rican rainforest. She has presented solo exhibitions with Roman Road Gallery in London and L21 Gallery in Mallorca, Spain.
Nicolas Party
B. 1980, Lausanne, Switzerland. Lives and works in New York and Brussels.
In 2017, Swiss-born artist Nicolas Party was commissioned by the Hirshhorn Museum to create a pastel-colored world with his circular show of wall mural works, “sunrise, sunset,” which wrapped around the museum’s third-floor gallery. The show’s dreamy landscapes—a blue-toned mountainscape, towering scarlet trees, or kaleidoscopic underbrush—each emphasized the shifting play of light and shadow as sunrise and sunset glowed over these bold natural forms.
Painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, installation, and murals—Party’s use of eye-popping pastels echoes Salvo’s saturated palette. Yet it is the artist’s color gradients that most strongly connect him to the Italian artist. The sun is central in Salvo’s works, such as Fabbrica (1987), where a golden sun radiates over a factory. Similar, though subtler, is Party’s Sunset (2018), which features a polychromatic twilight landscape beneath a piercing orange sun.
Party started as a graffiti artist before earning his BFA from the Lausanne School of Art in 2004 and his MFA from the Glasgow School of Art in 2009. Now, the 44-year-old artist is represented by top galleries, including Hauser & Wirth, Xavier Hufkens, and Karma, among others.
Mickey Mason
B. 1993, Australia. Lives and works in Port Elliot, Australia.
A surfer gliding on a perfect wave is often the central motif for Mickey Mason’s landscapes—an appropriate protagonist for the Australian artist, who lives in the coastal town of Port Elliot, Australia. Vesuvius (2024), for instance, depicts an erupting volcano—inspired by the famous Italian volcano—with a plume of smoke billowing into the sky, framed by a serene tropical scene below, where a surfer rides a crashing wave. Mason’s eccentric use of color creates a striking contrast, where clouds glow mauve and the giant wave is a radioactive green.
Mason’s landscapes, like Salvo’s, are playful and often feature surfers and UFOs. His portraits of smoking cowboys, with bold pigments and heavy textures, are just as stylized. Just like Salvo, Mason transforms familiar scenes into fantastical realms. This transformation is typified in Palm Tree Beach Surfer (2024), where the sun’s glow divides the ocean and a lone surfer rides a giant green wave.
A self-taught artist, Mason has presented solo exhibitions at venues including BSG Projects and LUNDGREN GALLERY.
Qingchuan 青川
B. 1989, Beijing. Lives and works in Beijing.
Chinese artist Qingchuan apprenticed under famed scientific illustrator Zeng Xiaolian in 2017 before working as an illustrator for National Geographic’s China edition. This experience instilled in her a deep appreciation for the natural world. Now, birds, swans, and snakes populate her sensual, soft paintings. Cradle (2024) depicts a snake around a red ball against a sun-drenched desert backdrop, while Above the Cloud (2024) shows a bird gliding over one bulbous cloud.
Salvo’s paintings often portrayed imaginary landscapes rather than settings from observation. Likewise, though Qingchuan is trained in precise scientific depictions of nature, she also favors a more uncanny approach. This is evident in Migration II (2024), where a meandering river leads to a soft, glowing horizon through which a flock of birds passes. The landscape is framed by a curling, cave-like entryway, mirroring the manipulation of space found in Salvo’s cityscapes, such as La Città (1986), where encroaching buildings frame the composition.
These works were the subject of her solo exhibition with KB Fine Art in August 2024, titled “The Tides of Life.”
Pablo Benzo
B. 1982, Santiago. Lives and works in Berlin.
The surreal paintings of Chilean artist Pablo Benzo often feature smaller canvases portrayed within them. These paintings-within-paintings are accompanied by phantasmagoric depictions of everyday items like vases, chairs, fruits, and plants. His supernatural settings brim with a surplus of art historical references, from uncanny forms reminiscent of Giorgio Morandi and Henri Matisse to Salvo’s vibrant, deliberately colored still lifes.
How We Know What We Know (2024), for instance, portrays a seated woman surrounded by two canvases: one unfinished on the easel, and another on the wall depicting a dancing naked figure. The scene unfolds against a backdrop reminiscent of a Salvo countryside, with cartoonish rolling hills and a luminous skyscape.
Born in Santiago, Benzo studied graphic design at the University of Chile. He has presented solo exhibitions at Galerie Kornfeld in Berlin, Steve Turner in Los Angeles, and Dio Horia in Shanghai, among others.
Camillia Engström
B. 1989, Örebro, Sweden. Lives and works in Los Angeles.
A graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology, Camilla Engström taught herself how to paint while working in New York’s fashion industry. Initially, she created drawings of an alter ego named Husa (Swedish for “housemaid”), and, as time went on, Engström gradually built a color-soaked world around the character. These settings are intensely colored and often psychedelic, sometimes featuring anthropomorphized natural forms.
In Yellow Moon (2022), Engström presents a sensual landscape with voluptuous hills under an incandescent, oversized moon, evoking a mood reminiscent of Salvo’s twilight landscapes. Like Salvo, Engström imagines a world with exaggerated natural forms and a radiant color palette. Her imaginary landscapes are informed by the diverse environments in which she’s lived. “For me, I thought the paintings looked like Sweden, but a Swedish friend said they look like California. It’s a mix of both worlds,” she told Artnet News.
Engström is also often compared to Georgia O’Keeffe—an artist she has obsessed over for years. The 35-year-old artist has presented solo shows with Over The Influence, KÖNIG GALERIE, and Deli Gallery, among others.
Andreas Schulze
B. 1955, Hanover, Germany. Lives and works in Cologne.
Andreas Schulze first gained recognition when gallerist Monika Sprüth presented his paintings at her eponymous gallery in 1983. At the time, Schulze was working in Cologne amid the exploding Neo-Expressionist movement. However, his approach differed. Instead of adopting the era’s frantic, gestural brushwork, Schulze developed a style characterized by whimsical, rounded forms. This style is evident in Gleise am Meer (2013), which traces a train track against a bulbous landscape. Schulze’s use of sharp, repetitive lines guides the eye across a colorful canvas of undulating hills and concentric circles, creating an almost hypnotic effect.
This enigmatic approach—marked by Schulze’s layered colors and meticulous patterns—shares a visual resonance with Salvo’s illusionistic color fields. Schulze’s invitation to observe without interpreting is clear: “You can come and look, but don’t think you can just step into this world, fully understand it, and identify it—no way,” Schulze said.
Schulze still works with Sprüth, under the auspices of Sprüth Magers, which has continued representing the artist. In London, the gallery is pairing Schulze’s work with Salvo’s in its November 2024 show, “About Painting.” The 69-year-old artist is also represented by Team Gallery in New York.
Header and thumbnail: Salvo, “Italy (Italia),” 2009. Courtesy of La Maison de la Petite Sara.
