LOS ANGELES, CA.- LAUNCH Gallery is presenting the fifth solo exhibition by Los Angeles based artist Leigh Salgado. In her current series, Pissed ‘N Blissed, Leigh continues her intricate, meditative process of cutting, painting and collaging paper to create objects of depth and beauty. Salgado continues to investigate ideas of the feminine as an act of female empowerment and strength. Unfortunately, fundamental human rights of women so long ago fought for and won, are currently under siege. Through these creations, Leigh hopes to inspire her sisters and brothers in creativity and humanity to stand up to the dark oppressors and fight, in whatever way we can, to spread truth, light and dignity.

I am pissed n’ blissed. Life in 2024 is a swing set - a wild tumble between angst and ecstasy mark my days and weeks. Sometimes the hours. On one side, technology kills my spirit with its incessant drip-drip delivery of news. On the other, tech keeps my great friendships current and present. The swing down tells me the role of women is headed back to the middle ages while the swing up helps me connect to doing my part to see that regression is thwarted.

My paintings defy institutional insistence on narrow political labels but I maintain a girly preciousness all the same. I am a fine art painter yet I cover and cut up my paintings. There is a bliss in painting that defies the darkness and my anger dissolves as I sculpt their surfaces with my blade, pissed off at an imperfect world offering too many perfect possibilities to despise.

Leigh Salgado is a Los Angeles based painter known for complex hand-cut paper artworks that overindulge in themes of pleasure and identity. She earned a Bachelors in Fine Art from UCLA and a Masters from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Yet it was at the experimental Santa Monica College of Design, Art & Architecture where her breakthrough into piercing the physical space of the picture plane happened. In a quarter century of exhibiting she has had numerous solo shows in commercial and institutional spaces along with a public art installation at the L.A. International Airport (LAX).