Artist Statement

Obsidian Silence is a meditation on memory, rupture, and the unseen terrain we navigate in solitude. These works were born during a six-week period of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) therapy—a time of deep emotional excavation and quiet restoration.

Each painting carries the residue of what surfaced: moments of stillness, discomfort, clarity, and release. Black, in this body of work, is not an absence—it is a presence. A mirror. A place for breath. The canvases became spaces to hold what words could not, and gestures that emerged when thought stepped aside.

Guided by the symbolic weight of obsidian—a stone long associated with protection, truth, and transformation—I allowed each work to unfold with instinct and honesty.

This series is not about resolution. It is about what remains when language dissolves, and all that’s left is texture, energy, and the silence that listens back.

— Salazar