[5] Around 2003, inspired by their "mechanical" shapes, Salter began using pre-formed styrofoam packing materials to construct a six-foot tall robotic sculpture.

[12] Later that year, a solo show at Rice University titled too much featured a Styrobot nearly as large in a much smaller space, crouched in a defeated position in the corner, surrounded on all sides by walls plastered with scores of images culled from Salter's collection of graphic icons.

[5][7] Executed in the simple, generic, black and white style of international signage, they seem at first familiar, yet their surrealistic content defies explanation.

The show, entitled Are You Sure, featured a variety of elements from his ouvre, including the fourteen foot tall Styrobot, a series of digital C-prints titled Situations Unknown depicting empty suburban landscapes containing a single improbable element, and a collection of porcelain figurines dubbed Subzer-o: a series of static humanoid figures, each branded with its own logo, packaging, and text describing its particular depressing attributes.

Grouped around these oversize figures were a number of smaller works in a variety of media: lighted panels displaying Salter's "spoofs" on graphic design and corporate logotypes, a shelf of colorful toylike monsters in tubes, two imploded oil cans covered with glossy paint and appliqués, a series of images depicting surreal suburban environs, small sharks apparently swimming into a wall, and the kinetic sculpture Finger Lickin' Good.

[16] In 2009, Salter would install a solo show at think.21, If You Don't Buy It From Us, It's Not Our Problem[17] which included a pensive looking seated Styrobot and the "absurd" figure of a giant singing yellow banana whose pants had fallen to his ankles.

[9] For his solo show as the New Britain Museum of American Art featured "New/Now" artist in 2012, Salter displayed commercial-like signage with ominous undertones, an oversize graphic image of a delicate hand pinching a denuded flower, small chimera-like sculptures made of toy figurines, and two Icon-o-lots - panels covered with what one reviewer characterized as "subversive glyphs that seem to exist just beyond one's ability to perceive them.

[20] Salter's work is characterized by a response to and a subversion of consumer culture, the ubiquity of corporate branding, and the banality of urban and suburban landscapes.

In a 2012 show at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, two of Salter's recurring motifs combined in ANDY: Autonomous Nautical Deepwater stYrobot- a twenty foot long Styroshark.

And I think that's actually a better idea of sustainability in the end.The artist seems to be making a comment about the power of branding in our lives...At the opening to his show...someone thought they recognized the umbrella in one of his works.

But I prefer to think of Salter as a kind of postmodern René Magritte, mocking our smug attempts to reduce complex human reality to a simple, black and white stereotype.