At the art residency Numeroventi in Florence, the Brazilian artist Samuel De Saboia talks about his artistic practice that explores sexuality, migration, and displacement
Samuel De Saboia at the art residency Numeroventi in Florence
Samuel de Saboia became well known for his large-scale mixed-media paintings addressing existential dichotomies such as life and death, pain and pleasure, and virtue and vice. The artist’s paintings relay fragments of his personal narrative as he explores themes including sexuality, migration, and displacement. Saboia began painting and selling his work online at an early age. In 2019, Brazil’s FAMA Museum mounted Saboi’s first solo museum exhibition.
Painting since the age of thirteen, Samuel De Saboia is a mix of resilience and spirituality. Born in Brazil, the 26 years-old traveled more countries than he can count. In constant search of encounters and inspiration, Saboia mostly found himself. Today, Samuel De Saboia opened up about his life path and artistic career, as Lampoon meets him in Florence at the art residency Numeroventi.
Recife, Brazil – a house of spirituality for Samuel De Saboia
I’m an artist and creative director, but most of all, I’m a dreamer, a thinker, and a nomad. I’m from Recife on the north face of Brazil, which is a powerful cultural house in terms of spirituality. Spirituality is something that I have always been related to within my life and my artistic practice. My parents are preachers and that gives a lot of direction, for going deep within existence and finding the route to be both in the spiritual world and the physical one.
Samuel De Saboia’s early life in Sao Paulo, Brazil
On my mom’s side, everyone did manual work for the church, so they all knew how to paint or sew. I already drew as a kid but the idea of becoming an artist came right after I experienced death for the first time. I had an aunt named Fatima. She was a painter and had given to my parents a painting of a white flower on a black silk when I was born. My aunt used to bring me to her studio where I could see her creating. When I was ten, I spent a whole night joking and talking about art with her. But the next morning, she passed away because of a brain tumor I did not know about. Right after she died, I started painting. That was the proper beginning.
By fifteen, I had quite a big online presence on Facebook pages, Tumblr and Instagram. I had made paintings on cardboard and was selling them for around 35 euro each to go to Sao Paulo to work as an artist. Amidst all of that, I was able to set everything up and saved enough money to go. In Sao Paul I figured out the city, and was working my way up — at fifteen I had a first exhibition and at nineteen a museum show — while keeping on coming back to my hometown to channel the spiritual world, physicality into a place of touch.
Transphobia, racism, police brutality, or poverty
In the beginning, I talked a lot about death in my paintings. Aged twenty, I did my first solo show in New York. My paintings were about six friends of mine who had passed away in a period of six months because of transphobia, racism, police brutality, or poverty. But I needed to make something beautiful out of it. To be able to afford such a trip, I had made a post on Instagram saying, «Hey, my name is Sam. I’m a painter from Brazil, and I don’t want anyone to give me money. I just want you to buy my work so I can go do my solo show in New York» and it got viral. I had thirty paintings by the time, and was able to save quite a good amount of money. Then I arrived in New York and that’s when all the crazy adventure started.
After NYC – Samuel De Saboia landing in Europe
Yes, after the New York show, I had returned to Brazil and for my twenty-one-year-old birthday I decided to go to Paris. I first lived in Bagnolet [eastern suburbs of Paris] in a hundred euro bedroom. I ended up bringing six other kids in the house, which drove the landlord crazy and then moved to Berlin for a bit. When I got back to Brazil, there were galleries that wanted to sign contracts with me as I was the first person of my age to have exhibitions outside the country. But Brazil was going through the election process and while I was abroad someone had written a review about my exhibition in New York, entitled something like «A twenty-year-old Brazilian artist talks about Brazilian violence in New York». This got me in a crazy fight with the Bolsonaro family to the point that people were hunting me online. I received fifty thousand tweets, death threats, pure racism, and hate comments.
So in Brazil I had this public artist life, doing interviews and going on live TV while at the same time having to secure my family and myself. I had a private driver and people constantly around. It just got all intense for a twenty-one-year-old.
Samuel De Saboia at Galeria Kogan Amaro
In the meantime, I was opening my next solo in Brazil, named Guardians as in the energy and spiritual protectors, at Galeria Kogan Amaro. At the opening, there were three blocks of people queuing and for the first time I had brought my mother. I saw my life properly changing. That exhibition gave me money and exposure like I haven’t seen before.
I was still understanding how to live. In my hometown, my life was about nature, spending time at the beach or in the forest with friends and family whereas in Sao Paul I was getting famous in the art crowd and New York, Paris was about the party madness. I got a bit lost, so I decided that I would just keep on traveling until I had found myself. From that moment on, it was me and my luggage doing five to eight countries a year.
I hope to have not only stamina, but the trust in God: Samuel de Saboia
I’ve been traveling by myself for eight years now. I left my house when I was seventeen. Then it became a game of figuring out how many countries I could do each year and while I’m traveling, understanding the ways to create, but also evolving, learning, and adapting. I hope to have not only stamina, but the trust in God that I’m going to arrive at a place where everything makes full sense and I’m able to create within the vision that I have, but also within the structure that I deserve.
The meaning of work and art according to Samuel de Saboia
To create, I need to live, in order to live I need to be in movement and to keep being in movement, I need enough time to rest. I developed a whole science when it comes to my creation. The word arte, is for me amor, rêve [dream in French], tempo and espiritu. So love, dream, time and spirit. These are my main grounds when it comes to creation. Usually I am either living through them, on the search for them and sometimes when I sit down and shut my mind, I realize I’m already surrounded by all of that.
Joni Mitchell and Joan Mitchell – Samuel de Saboia’s creative universe
For a long time, I related to anything but artists. We had encyclopedias at home but I only had the internet when I was fifteen. So I didn’t know who Joni Mitchell was this singer, and didn’t know who Joan Mitchell was the painter. I didn’t know about Basquiat, James Baldwin nor Miles Davis. I didn’t know people that looked like me existed.
To understand their existence is the secret knowledge of life. I believe it’s one of the most potent things. A lot of people spent a huge time of their life without allowing themselves to dream, not because they lack faith, but because of their words’ limitation.
I come from a background where I not only saw people not having food, but sometimes I was on that verge too. I’ve seen people being shot. I’ve seen people die in front of me as I was going to the bakery. I’ve seen death and destruction, but it never made me despair or give up. I’m extremely lucky, because my family gave me a deep experience of wisdom and spirituality.
These are the things my parents live for, and that keeps on giving me a sense of direction. To the point that even if things are not working right, I still can manage to find another route. And that’s my inspiration.
From gray to green – Samuel de Saboia in London
When I was in London in the past months, my paintings would be green, then things started to get gray. I think colors come with my spirit or mood in the moment I’m creating, it helps me manifest a feeling, or a state of emotion. They are a way to navigate in the place I’m painting at the moment I’m doing it.
Then, the creatures in my paintings have sort of human features and expressions, but the colors show their proper intensity. I need to have the colors talk by themselves without the necessity of them and the creature becoming one. Sometimes the creatures have their own intentions and they’re going to be portrayed with the use or the avoidance of color.
The series Constellation of Certainty
I have a nice relationship with the titles. Since last year, I’ve been working on a new series of work that has deeply touched me: The Ancestral Hope of Becoming a Constellation Instead of a Supernova. This title describes a lot about my life. I’m a capital A artist, but at the same time, I’m not represented by one single gallery. I’m not in one single good museum collection. So those are hopes I have to become a constellation.
This series started in London then Brazil, Paris and ended in Florence, where I adapted it to The Certainty of Becoming a Constellation or Constellation of Certainty. It means that it’s not an idea, a possibility or a hope, anymore but something happening within the present time. A constellation exists within the multitude of oneself. It’s carrying all the experiences and the different versions of yourself. In the creative capitalist system, we ask us — the artists – to be supernovas but I’m unloading myself from the necessity of that machine.
Samuel De Saboia at Numeroventi in Florence
The decision of Florence goes on with many layers. I’ve been doing that fantastic residency named Numeroventi created by a dear friend of mine. In my work, I’ve been diving deep within, not only the history of identity, but also the history of art. Since Florence and Italy is one of those places that has shaped what art is, it has been a beautiful understanding how the old masters can not only be actualized but also put in a place of reconciliation with contemporary art. I’ve come to understand that the beauty of the past can always be enriched by the presence of now. I feel like it’s not necessary to separate things. Staying in a place where art is everywhere has been a satisfying experience.
My creativity encounters softness – Samuel de Saboia’s future plans
Every single year has been the most intensive school of life. But, I feel, especially after the past year ended, that I’m finding out my structure and enjoying it more. The life I live tends to be intense, beautiful, poetic, funny, with interesting hard parts as well — where I’m mostly freaking out about how to deal with politics, money or figuring out how to live life when I’m pretty much on air all the time.
So far, I do not own a house nor rent anything. I work, sell my paintings, then have money to go somewhere else. I’m also having a more pragmatic vision of Europe now, seeing it not as a place of dreams but of reality. Brazil is where my creativity encounters softness, comfort and spirituality. Being a nomad has been a beautiful experience but at the same time, I just feel I’m in the right moment for that to change.
Photography Daniel Civetta, Styling George Wood-Weber
Photography: Daniel Civetta
Styling: George Wood-Weber
Talent: Samuel de Saboia
