Shaded
Can Alekxey Sabido Capture the Color of Nothingness?

By Angie Hargot

He may have found infinity.

In artist Alekxey Sabido’s Mayan Gold series, one canvas (or six) captures a compelling new relationship between textures, yellows and pinks. In his Beyond Color collection, bold bright canvases coexist with pale, muted works. Sabido’s intention is to explore the infinite combinations of colors and textures, an act that by doing, transforms the concept of the simplistic into the incomprehensible.

Currently working on a exhibition the will be unveiled during the Art Basel week opening of a Wynwood gallery-slash-restaurant, Sabido also is part of a group of Mexican artists led by the Mexican Cultural Institute in Miami, and is scheduled to be a part of the Mexican Pavilion in the next Arte Americas. Two of his larger paintings are also now currently on display in the Art Center’s main building Meridian Avenue exhibition window.

Sabido has also exhibited in Mexico, the U.S. and Europe, has been featured in numerous publications. Images of his work have been used for everything from cultural events to the sets for both Latin and American TV series — including “El Cuerpo del Deseo” on Telemundo and “Keeping up with the Kardashians” on E!

As is some of life’s greatest appreciations, Sabido’s vision was affected by the intensity of southern light, the warm hues and glows of the Caribbean, and the constant struggle between nature’s truly contrasting colors. He calls the interaction a battle.

But his current artistic mission presents yet another contrast to his focus on color — he seeks to paint “the nothingness.”

How did it all begin?
I was in sixth grade when my teacher reported to my mother I needed to register in some kind of art class since I was always illustrating my notebooks with amazing drawings: “Such a talent should be cultivated into something good; different than being so distracted in my class.” My mother followed the recommendation. There were groups of people that liked to paint by copying pictures from books and magazines. That set off my parade through a string of instructors that simply thought me how to copy images printed in art publications. I became an excellent copier of very sophisticated compositions from famous painters: Rubens, Murillo, and Leonardo, sometimes nice landscapes with animals like birds, wild turkeys or a deer family eyeing the landscape with romantic sights. The classes made me believe that paintings were as flat as a printed picture. Years later when I finally encountered a Picasso face to face, I thought he didn’t know how to paint.  I grew up in a city in Mexico where, unfortunately, the visual arts are several decades behind — A city where people would kill for a good romantic song or a good novel but, paradoxically, pay very little interest in the visual arts. It certainly was not a very inviting atmosphere to become a professional artist. However, the rich popular culture of the Mexican Caribbean became daily food for my inspiration. When the time was right I decided to embrace what became my vocation: Painting.

I had to move to Mexico City to attend the National School of Painting La Esmeralda.

La Esmeralda was a great experience. To merely apply to attend the school one had to pass a one week test where each day you demonstrated your natural ability to appreciate life through an artistic eye. One day I had to draw a city scene as if I was an architect, the next day another drawing of structures enhanced in their illustration, another day we had to paint a still life with watercolors to demonstrate we were not color blind. We had to replicate the volumes of overweight naked indigenous women in the style of [Francisco] Zuniga. I was accepted to the art school and started the work of trying different techniques in sculpture, drawing and painting to define the direction of a unique authentic style or artistic language.

After the third year, when things got very bad in relation to my learning curve I officially declared La Esmeralda “inconvenient for the advance in my career as the artist I planed to be.” From that moment on I started looking for better opportunities to learn and develop my artistic language. I put together my first art studio and started painting and showing in both solo and group shows. I started working as a set designer for the most important TV station on national television in Mexico. Soon I had to face the unexpected circumstance of having to go back to my hometown. That was the catapult to come to Miami. I just could not afford to go back to the beginning where again, I experienced artistic boredom and lack of opportunity. One year after I moved to Miami I was accepted for the first time in the Art Center / South Florida and my career found direction and a good pace — always forward in promotion and deeper into my expression as an artist. Since then I have grown a lot as an artist.  However it is within my nature to always question what I am doing in my art and try new challenges. My current one is to paint the nothingness:

Your use of color is quite evocative.
My latest series titled “The Beyond Color Collection” is the result of questioning my artistic expression, by wanting neither to paint at the service of a concept or a narrative intention, nor figure or symbol related to a known subject.

The colors in this collection are selected in an intuitive free manner. I see my disposable palette from the previous day and I pick a color. From that point on, the other colors can be inspired by the idea of warm, earthy or contrasting colors, or simply by different shades. Transparencies, textures and overlapping occurs in a free and unpredictable way.

What are you currently working on?
My current challenge is to paint the nothingness. This collection is about restoring my ability to create in the ‘purest’ context, created by my strokes as they follow an area in my brain where color, shape, texture — all the elements that form a painting in a pure form without attachments to any known language or system of communication, originate.

My art is the result of a search for the state of nothingness in my painting. The outcome is abstract, decorative and happy; certainly a perceptual struggle to not find an association with any known reference. In this collection my painting expands the way I perceive myself: it triggers more color, dimensions, strokes…more possibility, exploration, and freedom.

What other projects have interested you lately, even if as a spectator?
Along with my peer artists at the Art Center, we are working on a beautiful art book that I hope we’ll manage to place on every single household coffee table in South Florida

What has been the reception to your work?
People always like my work. Through my different collections I have always been able to touch people’s appreciation for painting.

What is the most flattering comment you’ve ever received about your work?
My friend Sam Strauch left me a message to thank me for the happiness a recent painting he acquired from me caused him every time he went back home after work.

The most insulting?
No insults, but the funniest was from an American lady speaking Spanish. She said my art resembles the art of “Frida Culo.”

Your most memorable piece so far?
I couldn’t pick one. I am absolutely, passionately, obsessed and in love with most of my pieces. In each one of my collections I have several. “El Valiente,” “La Sirena” and “El Camaron” from my Loteria Mexicana Collection. Some of the untitled pieces in my Beyond Color Collection. “Still Life with Swan” and “Naturaleza Muerta con Mano” from my Pottery Poetry Collection. “Leda and the Swan” from my Cameo Collection. The list has no end.

How has the art market been for you lately or in general?
Magic.

What’s next for you?
To paint.

See more of Sabido’s work at alekxeysabido.com, and at the ArtCenter / South Florida, 810 Lincoln Road, studio No. 111.

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