“In his new Vortex paintings, each picture has at its heart a whirling tornado that sucks the eye into nothingness, set against wallpaper-like backdrops of appropriated imagery, and objects like shells, baseballs, dessert plates and airplanes flying out towards the viewer. Using both painting and collage techniques, these large works merge figuration and abstraction. In these paintings Mr. Salle plumbs new depths of kitsch and scales new heights of painterly finesse. His touch and vision have a cold, macabre meticulousness to rival Dalí who shared a similar passion for anamorphy and other tricks and quirks of perception. Mr. Salle dispatches his fast, gooey, distortive swirls with a slick precision.” - Jeffrey Deitch, David Salle: The Vortex Paintings, exh. cat., Mary Boone Gallery, New York, 2005