David Salle - My Frankenstein - Los Angeles

One of the leading postmodern painters of the last fifty years, David Salle’s art is one of juxtaposition, and his artistic “style” is the integration of disparate, contrasting styles.

Painting of a dark-haired woman in a blue-striped jacket, stacked blue mugs beside her, nude figures in background.

David Salle
Blue Stack, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
86.4 × 111.8 cm | 34 × 44 inches
98.1 × 123.2 × 7 cm | 38 5/8 × 48 1/2 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

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David Salle
Blue Stack, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
86.4 × 111.8 cm | 34 × 44 inches
98.1 × 123.2 × 7 cm | 38 5/8 × 48 1/2 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

David Salle – My Frankenstein – Los Angeles

David Salle
Blue Stack, 2025 (detail)

David Salle
Blue Stack, 2025

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Gallery interior with colorful figurative paintings on white walls, polished reflective concrete floor.

Since the 1980s, Salle has plucked compelling imagery from art history, print advertising and, most extensively, his own photographs. He uses this source material to create novel and provocative mis-en-scènes that he revitalizes in paint. Salle’s creative method is to react to certain “givens”; to enter into a visual call-and-response with them. This aspect of his work is akin to the way certain painters at mid-century, notably Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, incorporated found objects into their paintings; the American flag or bits of urban detritus were the “givens” to which Rauschenberg and Johns responded.

Headless figure in white outfit with red belt and gloves, classical nude figure reflected in mirror at right.

David Salle
Space Lady, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
76.2 × 101.6 cm | 30 × 40 inches
88.6 × 113.3 × 7 cm | 34 7/8 × 44 5/8 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

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David Salle
Space Lady, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
76.2 × 101.6 cm | 30 × 40 inches
88.6 × 113.3 × 7 cm | 34 7/8 × 44 5/8 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

David Salle
Space Lady, 2025 (detail)

David Salle
Space Lady, 2025

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David Salle
Olympus, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
111.8 × 165.1 cm | 44 × 65 inches
123.5 × 176.5 × 7 cm | 48 5/8 × 69 1/2 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

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David Salle
Olympus, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
111.8 × 165.1 cm | 44 × 65 inches
123.5 × 176.5 × 7 cm | 48 5/8 × 69 1/2 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

David Salle
Olympus, 2025 (detail)

David Salle
Olympus, 2025

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The paintings in My Frankenstein continue Salle’s investigation into how machine learning can integrate with traditional painterly techniques. For the past few years, Salle has worked with an engineer to create a generative, proprietary AI model trained on aspects of his own oeuvre, feeding it a tightly edited selection of his past works and prompting it to generate new image configurations. The AI’s weird, counterintuitive reimaginings of Salle’s original paintings have become the new “givens” in this most recent body of Salle’s work.

Headless figure in green jumpsuit with gold belt, stacked colorful cups at right, nude figures in background.

David Salle
Salute, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
76.2 × 101.6 cm | 30 × 40 inches
87.9 × 113.3 × 7 cm | 34 5/8 × 44 5/8 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

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David Salle
Salute, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
76.2 × 101.6 cm | 30 × 40 inches
87.9 × 113.3 × 7 cm | 34 5/8 × 44 5/8 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

David Salle
Salute, 2025 (detail)

David Salle
Salute, 2025

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Spacious gallery with colorful figurative paintings, large central canvas with pink nude, reflective floor.

Figure in plaid skirt receiving a flower, oversized yellow and green armored torsos looming above.

David Salle
New Pastoral Green Torso, 2024
Oil, acrylic, flashe, and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
167.6 × 127 cm | 66 × 50 inches
179.1 × 138.4 × 7 cm | 70 1/2 × 54 1/2 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

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David Salle
New Pastoral Green Torso, 2024 (detail)

David Salle
New Pastoral Green Torso, 2024

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Red-dressed headless woman in yellow gloves, shirtless man behind, stacked colorful cups at right.

David Salle
Talk Therapy, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
91.4 × 137.2 cm | 36 × 54 inches
103.2 × 148.6 × 7 cm | 40 5/8 × 58 1/2 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

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David Salle
Talk Therapy, 2025 (detail)

David Salle
Talk Therapy, 2025

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The AI compositions form pixelated backgrounds, enlarged and printed on canvas, onto which the artist imposes a new layer of painted imagery. Salle has selected, altered, and repainted each one at will, in a dramatic compositional repartee between himself and a machine model of his own making.

In Morning, references to traditional artistic genres including still life, landscape, live-model drawing and history paintings abound at the edges and intersections of each canvas, a sort of metaphysical glue holding the compositions together.

Inverted torso holding irises, shirtless muscular figure, woman in red dress displayed sideways, colorful objects around.

David Salle
Morning, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
121.9 × 172.7 cm | 48 × 68 inches
133.7 × 183.8 × 7 cm | 52 5/8 × 72 3/8 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

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David Salle
Morning, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
121.9 × 172.7 cm | 48 × 68 inches
133.7 × 183.8 × 7 cm | 52 5/8 × 72 3/8 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

David Salle
Morning, 2025 (detail)

David Salle
Morning, 2025

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Headless figure in blue overalls and white shirt, stacked yellow cups at left, picnic scene behind.

David Salle
Worker, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
76.2 × 101.6 cm | 30 × 40 inches
88.6 × 113.3 × 7 cm | 34 7/8 × 44 5/8 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

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David Salle
Worker, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
76.2 × 101.6 cm | 30 × 40 inches
88.6 × 113.3 × 7 cm | 34 7/8 × 44 5/8 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

David Salle
Worker, 2025 (detail)

David Salle
Worker, 2025

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Gallery interior with four colorful figurative paintings on white walls, polished concrete floor.

Man in brown suit and red tie stands before a red abstract background, with two women in blue panel.

David Salle
3-Piece Suit, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
91.4 × 154.9 cm | 36 × 61 inches
102.9 × 166.7 × 7 cm | 40 1/2 × 65 5/8 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

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David Salle
3-Piece Suit, 2025 (detail)

David Salle
3-Piece Suit, 2025

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Close-up of pink shirt torso, yellow hat; background shows a male nude figure and abstract yellow shapes.

David Salle
Man, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
91.4 × 116.8 cm | 36 × 46 inches
102.9 × 128.3 × 7 cm | 40 1/2 × 50 1/2 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

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David Salle
Man, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
91.4 × 116.8 cm | 36 × 46 inches
102.9 × 128.3 × 7 cm | 40 1/2 × 50 1/2 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

David Salle
Man, 2025 (detail)

David Salle
Man, 2025

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Collage-like painting: yellow figure, grey nude torso, reclining orange figure, boy in striped shirt.

David Salle
Birth of Venus, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
182.9 × 233.7 cm | 72 × 92 inches
194.9 × 245.7 × 7 cm | 76 3/4 × 96 3/4 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

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The large-scale canvas Birth of Venus (2025) illustrates the incongruous layers of artist, machine, and visual reference that characterize Salle’s recent works.

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David Salle
Birth of Venus, 2025 (detail)

David Salle
Birth of Venus, 2025

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The large-scale canvas Birth of Venus (2025) illustrates the incongruous layers of artist, machine, and visual reference that characterize Salle’s recent works.

The exhibition’s title, My Frankenstein, reflects the artist’s recognition of the conflict inherent in his embrace of this new, still-evolving technology. A potent metaphor for the unintended consequences of scientific ambitions, Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein cautions against blind faith in one’s beliefs and methods—or in any prescriptive methodology.

Gallery with large colorful painting of figures under purple dress; three smaller works on opposite wall.

All installation views: Robert Wedemeyer

Cropped female torso in teal top and white skirt; layered background with figures and abstract shapes.

David Salle
Wrap Skirt, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
76.2 × 101.6 cm | 30 × 40 inches
88.3 × 113.7 × 7 cm | 34 3/4 × 44 3/4 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

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David Salle
Wrap Skirt, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
76.2 × 101.6 cm | 30 × 40 inches
88.3 × 113.7 × 7 cm | 34 3/4 × 44 3/4 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

David Salle
Wrap Skirt, 2025 (detail)

David Salle
Wrap Skirt, 2025

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The Frankenstein-like suturing of imagery is also illustrated in the painting Master and Margarita (2025), which, like the exhibition’s title, takes the name of a celebrated novel—in this instance Mikhail Bulgakov’s early-twentieth-century satire of the Soviet state.

Man in red dressing gown writing, large purple dress above; surrounding figures include a man in a green jacket.

David Salle
Master and Margarita, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
172.7 × 215.9 cm | 68 × 85 inches
184.5 × 227.3 × 7 cm | 72 5/8 × 89 1/2 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

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David Salle
Master and Margarita, 2025 (detail)

David Salle
Master and Margarita, 2025

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Headless figure in pink dress holds coffee cup; background with red splashes, green angel, yellow shapes.

David Salle
Pants, 2025
Oil, acrylic, Flashe, and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
76.2 × 101.6 × 3.2 cm | 30 × 40 × 1 1/4 inches
87.9 × 113.3 × 7 cm | 34 5/8 × 44 5/8 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

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David Salle
Pants, 2025 (detail)

David Salle
Pants, 2025

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Salle’s dynamic creative process yields paintings that have the expansive energy of all-over abstraction, but achieved with the use of representational imagery. His alternating collaboration and antagonism with his own AI model resolves into compositions that are propulsively rhythmic, sensorially complex and highly emotive. Each one visually embodies the central question of our time: Who’s ahead, humans or machine?

Figure in pink top bends over orange object; background shows two nudes, cookware, and orange fruit.

David Salle
Short Stack, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
106.7 × 142.2 cm | 42 × 56 inches
118.1 × 153.7 × 7 cm | 46 1/2 × 60 1/2 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

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David Salle
Short Stack, 2025 (detail)

David Salle
Short Stack, 2025

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Headless figure in orange shirt, white collar; background with nudes, pink shapes, yellow figure holding lemons.

David Salle
Orange Jumper, 2025
Oil, acrylic, flashe, and charcoal on archival UV print on linen
76.2 × 101.6 cm | 30 × 40 inches
88.3 × 113.3 × 7 cm | 34 3/4 × 44 5/8 × 2 3/4 inches (framed)

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