LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA.- The Los Angeles Rectangle Gallery is pleased to present "Ink 92" an overview of eclectic works on panel and canvas by internationally recognized artist, Michael Salerno. Completed between 1991 and 1993, the complex drawings included in this exhibition marked an innovative breakthrough in the development of this pioneering artist's work.

According to Mat Gleason, regarding the work of this period, Michael Salerno has a special relationship to the line as a formal element of drawing. Lines traditionally delineate space. Rarely can an artist use one element exclusively and arrive at form without shape, and fewer still can manage such a conjecture with the linear element. But there it is, nothing but lines, or perhaps, everything possible of line.

Beyond this essence, the doors are wide open to almost any perception. The rigidity of definition associated with line is hardly extant. Your imagination is required. While some artists have arrived at all-over pictures in color and shape, Salerno has approached the magnificence of the irresolute in his own manner. That which would stand as a border is the device manifesting the borderless.

"Painting's Edge" at Idyllwild Arts: "If you look at the ceiling of some prehistoric caves, you will see a tangle of lines made by ancient artists, with their fingers in wet clay. We sense this is sacred and ritualistic ground, and feel a profound moment of identification between our forbears and our own humanness. Michael Salerno's work stands in a direct line from that time to the present.

Leonardo DaVinci recommended weaving a tangle of lines, and the study of it, in which you would see armies, cities, mountains and waters. Of course, beyond free association, in Michael Salerno's work you will experience much more. From Tabla Rasa to what becomes a dense multi layered field of woven line - like an active, tremulous energy field, spread before your eyes - buzzing - humming - vibrating - shimmering, you see it, you feel it... a palpable expressive surface resulting from the insistence of a continuous line, accumulating, aggregating - a deep and powerful sense of human existence.

Michael Salerno's painting is like no other painting I know. It comes about differently. Once you find your way into it, you will be blown away. He is unique, and one of the most original painters I know." -Roland Reiss, introduction to a slide lecture, July, 2004.

In 1976, Salerno relocated to Los Angeles from New York at the age of 28. His interest in the potentials of light and space continued even though expressive "new" image painting and post-modern cynicism were more popular fields of study. The subject of more than 150 exhibitions, his work can be found in collections in Asia, Europe, Saudi Arabia and throughout the United States.