10 Questions with Sayitxreal
Sayitxreal is a Colombian artist from Medellín whose work bridges the physical and spiritual realms, exploring themes of existence, duality, and personal transformation. With a background in architecture and dance, she merges these disciplines to create art that balances structure and fluidity, combining vibrant colors and mixed media to evoke emotions and introspection. Her pieces are deeply personal, reflecting moments of growth, resilience, and her connection to the human psyche, often addressing themes of healing and rebirth.
Rooted in her cultural heritage, Sayitxreal’s work transcends borders, fostering empathy and connection. Influenced by her experiences in Medellín, she is committed to art’s transformative power, both individually and within communities. Her portfolio spans mixed media paintings and intricate works on paper, each piece offering a visual narrative that invites introspection and celebrates the human spirit. For Sayitxreal, art is not only an expression but also a tool for healing, self-discovery, and finding meaning in life’s complexities.
Sayitxreal - Portrait
ARTIST STATEMENT
Art, for Sayitxreal, is a bridge to the immaterial. His work emerges from the belief that creativity is a channel to expand and transmute the deep layers of being, the human experience, and its relationship with the unknown. Each piece is a ritual, an encounter with invisible forces that guide the creative process, where matter and spirit intertwine in harmony.
Sayitxreal declares that the purpose of art is not only beauty but also the confrontation and channeling of the uncomfortable and the sublime. Through his work, he aspires to provoke a state of introspection in the viewer, seeking to express the deepest emotions that lead to the expansion of consciousness. Influenced by symbolism, mysticism, and nature, his approach seeks to rediscover the hidden meaning in the every day, revealing that art is a vehicle for personal and collective transformation.
BREAKS TIL IT SHINES, mixed media canvas, 20x20 cm, 2024 © Sayitxreal
INTERVIEW
First of all, introduce yourself to our readers. When did you first discover your passion for art, and what inspired you to pursue it?
Art has been present in my life for as long as I can remember. One of my great-aunts is a plastic artist, and every time I visited my great-grandmother, I was excited to visit her studio, a warm and magical space where there was no rightanswer, only a constant exploration through materials and colors. Here, the important thing was to enjoy the process rather than obsessing over the outcome. I know that from that moment on, the dream of living from art was planted within me.
However, after that, I tried to abandon it due to limiting beliefs that poisoned my faith in it, with comments like 'you can't live from art' or 'artists are chaotic.' It wasn't until time passed, and after an exhaustive process of healing and personal growth, that I was able to reprogram those toxic beliefs and start believing again that I could make art and live from it.
It's been two years now since I consciously decided to invest in my art and once again believe in the childhood dream that brought so much color to my life. More than inspiration, it was a challenge to explore myself outside of predefined molds.I wanted to expand my being, to see it naked without any stereotypes in between. This decision was accompanied by a symbolic and liberating ritual: shaving my head, as an act of letting go of external validation and prioritizing my owndesires and longings. My greatest inspiration has been the promise to make my inner child happy, to become the person she always imagined herself to be.
CONTROL, mixed media canvas, 20x20 cm, 2022 © Sayitxreal
How does your background in architecture influence your artistic creations?
Architecture has undoubtedly been my grounding force. As an artist, my mind tends to wander off, dreaming in the clouds. Creatively, this is something nourishing because it opens up to ideas, sensations, and atmospheres. But if we only inhabit that space in the sky, we tend to fall into the chaos of infinite creative flow. We must learn to bring this flow into the material world and be able to execute it physically. Architecture has been a guide for this; from it, I learned to build my own methodology for transforming my ideas into matter, allowing me to channel the creative flow into tangible and inhabitable projects.
Since I was little, I had a very good spatial perception of the world, and architecture intensified and polished this ability, which has allowed me to understand my art as a threshold that can transport the observer to different sensations and atmospheres. Furthermore, it awakened in me the possibility of creating spatial art installations that expand and explore the best of my worlds.
And what role does your experience as a dancer play in shaping your art?
Dance is the most genuine connection with my body that I have found. I have practiced it since I was little, starting with ballet, then hip hop, jazz, salsa, and currently contemporary dance. I am a very active person who enjoys constant movement, and dance is a way for me to connect with myself in the present moment. It has taught me that it's better to move in silence consciously, imbuing every step with intention and focus.
That deep connection with movement is what permeates my creative process. My works are visual manifestations of subconscious movements, paths I have traced within my inner self over the years with the purpose of illuminatingforgotten or repressed parts of my being. They are internal explorations focused on building and expanding my authenticity, not only as an artist but also as a person. Dance has taught me to move with rhythm and purpose, not only in art but in every aspect of my life.
KARMIC GENERATIONAL TIES, mixed media canvas, 50x35 cm, 2023 © Sayitxreal
SENTINEL OF CHAOS, mixed media canvas, 20x25.5 cm, 2024 © Sayitxreal
Your work explores the connection between the physical and spiritual worlds. How do you translate this into your art?
I have always been an extremely sensitive being to energies, and although at first this scared me, over time, I realized that it is a gift, not a burden. Ten years ago, I hit rock bottom and found myself at a crossroads, deciding whether to continue living or simply end my existence. By choosing to live, I made a promise to myself that I would do so with all my energy and intention. I didn't want a gray and dull life; I wanted to feel full of light and color, full of passion for whatever I did, and proud of having built the dreams I had longed for.
This dilemma in my life led me down a path full of obstacles, a lot of darkness, and resilience. I realized that in order tobecome who I wanted to be, I needed to deconstruct and detoxify my being from everything that wasn't mine. I also had to take responsibility for what was my own and heal it with consciousness and love. During this path of growth and spiritual healing, dreams full of hope that I had as a child began to resurface, and the most important one was to save the world. Although at that time, I thought it would be with superpowers, as I began integrating it into my new reality, it became more focused on my current skills and abilities. That's when I asked myself: What could I contribute to the world to make it more colorful and luminous?
My art and my podcast SOLTAR PARA VOLAR (let go to fly) are the manifestation of that dream. Through them, I found a way to transmit my knowledge, experiences, and my way of seeing life, which could bring light to those who, like me, inhabit or once inhabited the darkness of the void after losing all their strength and hope. With my art, I don't seek to impose a concept on the viewers. It is my intention that my art can help them reconnect with some dormant part of their soul.
What inspires the vibrant colors and textures in your pieces? Do they have a particular meaning for you, and how do you choose your color palette?
As I mentioned before, the confirmation that I am living the life I always dreamed of has been color and luminosity. For me, colors are the materialization of my dreams come true. They are magic. Everything becomes fun and intriguing, theytake away my fear of uncertainty and motivate me to explore. It's like that childhood pursuit of chasing the tail of the rainbow, because we'll find little elves who will give us golden coins. It's that connection with my inner child who wasn't afraid to dream that those fantasies could come true, who wasn't afraid to show herself as she was for fear of what others might say. She simply existed in her fullness and authenticity, not afraid to have fun and explore unknown places out of a hunger for adventure. Now that I am 28, I feel closer to my inner child than in previous years, and that's because I've allowed myself to inhabit my reality from fantasy and romance.
The color palette I use reflects my fidelity to my inner child, our dreams, and hopes for a better world with more unity and creativity. A world where we are not afraid to inhabit our truest essence and show it to the world, a place hungry for art, where authenticity and sincerity in our actions and words are valued. I want to keep believing that one day we will all see life filled with color and light, as I have managed to do; more than a filter we apply to the lens with which we see life, it is an attitude of aligning with your soul and your deepest purposes, and this alignment, for me, is colorful and luminous.
PERIOD, guache on canvas, 30x30 cm, 2024 © Sayitxreal
How do you approach experimenting with mixed media in your creative process?
As I approach art with an intention of adventure and exploration, all possibilities are valid as long as they harmonize with what I want to convey. In my more experimental works, I typically seek to communicate deep emotions and intentions, and by listening closely to myself, I choose colors, shapes, and textures that are related to what I feel. For example, if I want to convey an explosion of light coming from within, I ask myself questions like: What color do I see it as? Is it flat or in relief? Where does it start, and where does it end? Is it a diluted shape or a marked one, like a crack? And of course, the answers depend on the intention; an explosion of light starting from destruction would not be the same as one starting from expansion.
Mixed media presents me with possibilities to communicate my intentions in different ways—some more diluted, others more marked, more expressive or softer. It is the harmonic balance between them that generates contrast and depth in the message I want to convey with my art. For me, mixed media is the bridge that allows me to bring my ideas from the etheric world to the tangible world.
Why is art an important tool for healing and self-discovery in your practice? And how do you achieve this healing power?
At the beginning of my life, art was a means of exploration and experimentation, a fun activity that connected me to myself. But as I grew and gained more awareness and depth in my life, I felt the call to take it up again, this time with a therapeutic approach. I went through moments of extreme emotional pain and anxiety, and during my panic attacks, art was the only thing that allowed me to release and truly transmute the emotion flooding my body. Of course, in a state like that, you don't work on a painting cleanly, but it was there that the most intense and profound sketches I have ever done were born, which later gave life to invaluable pieces for me. EVERYTHING IS ENERGY, AND ENERGY IS NEITHER CREATED NOR DESTROYED; IT IS TRANSFORMED. We can learn to transform and transmute it; this is called energetic channeling, and art is one of the most effective methods to do so. Through this, energy flows naturally and transmutes into the physical world to give something valuable and full of meaning.
Thanks to this practice, I was able to transform my pain into works of art, freeing myself and healing, leaving me with a priceless creative memory of my feelings. In the end, my art is my naked being, my deepest and most intimate emotions,captured on the canvas. No work is born from nothing; I have pieces that transmuted my healing with my uterus, with my eroticism, with the need for external validation, wounds from generational karmas, ego dissociations, as well as the integration of my being. Now, when I contemplate them, I feel grateful for having felt the pain that allowed me to release it and heal. It's not easy; it burns and hurts, but it's worth every bit of effort to feel calm, light, and grateful later. And this can be done with any form of art, whether singing, dancing, or writing—I use several of these at different times. I believe it all comes down to following your intuition toward what you feel most drawn to and connected with the emotions you are experiencing. And simply feeling what you carry inside. I am sure that once you open the door, everything that doesn't belong to your essence won't be able to cling to it anymore.
LAVA ALMA, mixed media canvas, 25.5x25.5 cm, 2024 © Sayitxreal
MIRROR TRICKSTER, mixed media canvas, 20x20 cm, 2024 © Sayitxreal
Can you describe a piece of your work that feels particularly transformative to you?
I have a piece called KARMIC GENERATIONAL TIES, which was the process and result of a search for generational karmic healing in my family. One December, during a meditation, I received a call to heal the lineage, and both of my deceased grandparents appeared to me, but at the time, I didn't take it seriously. A month later, an event occurred thatbroke my family, and I distanced myself to live on my own. As I delved into the wound, an ocean of immeasurable pain exploded— I wasn't just feeling my pain, but I was channeling the pain of all my ancestors. It was a truly difficult time, filled with darkness, emptiness, and despair. During that time, I chose to go step by step, transmuting and feeling everything, with the help of art and the esoteric therapy of the yoni egg. It was 10 months of the healing process, during which the artwork took shape over time, according to what I felt and how I progressed.
In the end, my family healed, and so did my ancestors. On the day of reconciliation, I felt the call to meditate again and connect with my lineage. That was when everything concluded—the pain I had felt from all my ancestors during those 10 months dissolved, many souls ascended, and I was filled with love, the love of all those who had lived that same generational karma and now thanked me for freeing them. With that final scene in my meditation, I finished the piece, and since that day, I have carried with me that generational love. This piece was particularly transformative for me because the process of its creation involved 10 months of extremely charged and complex emotional and energetic work. Not everyone is willing to feel the pain of others; it's an act of courage to consciously choose to heal, and this piece is the materialization of all this transformation and healing that was born from the will to liberate and purify.
What message or feeling do you hope viewers take away from your art?
My perspective on art is that it should make us feel something. Each work may have the concept the artist gave it, and where it originated from, but if it doesn't convey anything, to me, it's not fulfilling its purpose as art.
My works are born from an intention, an emotion that I want to transmit to the world or simply seek to explore more deeply. But that is my vision; it's not necessarily the same as the viewer's. When I exhibit my art, I don't aim to sell my concept; my true intention is for them to feel the art themselves. What does it transmit to them? Does it bring any memories to their mind? Do they feel a specific emotion? I'm more interested in knowing how my art reaches others because we all connect from different angles, and I think that's what's valuable and fun about art: it doesn't generate the same result for everyone who observes it. It would be quite boring if everyone who contemplated my art had the same concept I created it with. I find it more expansive and fulfilling as an artist when each person gives it their owninterpretation and personal connection. As long as they find meaning through my art, I feel I've fulfilled my purpose.
THIS IS HOW IT STARTS, mixed media canvas, 50x40 cm, 2024 © Sayitxreal
Lastly, what are your aspirations or goals as an artist for the future?
I am a person with many dreams. I love imagining fantasies in my mind and then seeing how I could bring them to reality. This very interview is a dream come true for me, one I never imagined, but now that it's happening, I feel it that way. I dream of having my own art exhibition where I can also explore an art installation that combines art and architecture and accompany it with a performance integrating dance, singing, and music. I aspire to take my art to an international stage and genuinely connect with people. I love getting feedback and hearing the feelings of someone who has connected with my work. I long for art to keep expanding and exploring my being, inhabiting my authenticity in all its fullness.
I only have one goal for my future, and that is to live from my art and through it. I am a simple and creative person who simply seeks to do what I am passionate about in life and be compensated for these passions. A peaceful life, but with movement that allows me to be free myself, surround myself with genuine people, and through my work, also make a positive impact on the world. I would like to be the example that everything is possible if you dream it, trust yourself, and act passionately, guided by your intuition.
Artist’s Talk
Al-Tiba9 Interviews is a promotional platform for artists to articulate their vision and engage them with our diverse readership through a published art dialogue. The artists are interviewed by Mohamed Benhadj, the founder & curator of Al-Tiba9, to highlight their artistic careers and introduce them to the international contemporary art scene across our vast network of museums, galleries, art professionals, art dealers, collectors, and art lovers across the globe.
