Beginning with a love of wordplay, John Salvest’s site-specific installations and object-based art explore issues of time and mortality, the paradoxes of life and the true and proverbial in literature. He often employs literature and a sharp eye to create subtly provocative yet often ironic perceptions into the human condition. Working from collected objects specific for the installation or sculpture (business cards, matches, bottle caps, and stamps for his smaller “objects,” as he calls them, while shipping containers, billboards, far more business cards, punching bags are incorporated in his larger projects). His use of text and language as form allow for a range of interpretation and requires the viewer to examine connotations between text and everyday objects.

Based in Philadelphia, Salvest is a former Professor of Art at Arkansas State University and a current thinker and maker. He received his BA in English from Duke University and an MFA in Sculpture from the University of Iowa. In addition to being reviewed and featured in numerous publications such as Art in America, The New York Times, Art Papers, and The New York Examiner, Salvest is the recipient of various awards and grants including two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. His notable public art projects locations include the Cannon Center for Performing Arts in Memphis, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Grand Arts in Kansas City.