about me
My name is Saïd and i’m an abstract expressionist artist currently living, working and playing in Washington, DC since 2006.
Exhibitions
Corcoran Gallery of Art
Washington, DC
May 2010
Education
bfa
Corcoran College of Art + Design
Washington, DC
2006 – 2010
magnet
The Governor’s School for the Arts
Norfolk, VA
2002 – 2006
Awards
Person of the Year
TIME Magazine
2006
President’s Award
Corcoran College of Art + Design
2006
my art
What is conscience without memory? Do we not need to contextualize our awareness to process emotion?
Since grade school, I’ve subscribed to this idea of neostalgia. That is, the new nostalgia; seemingly a contradiction that is fun to think about. History is written and re-written. Our memory is faulty, our traumas are misleading and they try so hard to hold on to what we think we remember. Many times we actually do, but what about when we don’t?
We experience visceral reactions to scenarios that remind us of…what is that…I can feel it, but I can’t explain it…it’s that feeling when you wake up and you know you remember what you were just dreaming about, but can’t quite recreate it.
I’m Mexican + an Artist, but not necessarily at the same time.
I was born on the outskirts of Mexico City, on Independence Day in 1987.
On a 4th of July in 1992, almost five years old, I crossed the US border through Texas with my younger brother and other strangers, undocumented.
My work is about nostalgia, dissent, the digital glitch, and more importantly, shadow work.
Even if I just want to drink whiskey, break shit, and paint, I cannot afford to be apolitical and my work reflects that.
I always excelled academically because I was told that’s what good immigrants did.
That’s how we could justify our presence and the space we occupy.
- Savannah College of Art + Design
- Maryland Institute College of Art
- Corcoran College of Art + Design
I was accepted to all three art schools I applied to, but only one offered a full scholarship based on my academic standing and fine arts painting portfolio.
My parents didn’t plan on having me, let alone my academic career; I went with the Corcoran.
I switched degrees to digital media design and wrote my own curriculum my senior year because nobody knew what digital media design really was in 2006 and I didn’t want a piece of paper that told me and other people I knew how to paint.
Art school made me hate art for the unnecessary stress it whored out to students.
I stopped painting after I graduated.
In 2021, I started to paint more seriously again. I’m not necessarily an angry person, but I do make angry paintings on occasion; this energy has to go somewhere that is met with less resistance.
I say more seriously because when I did paint after I graduated, and only seldom…I only painted for myself and those close around me. I didn’t try to sell my work and didn’t apply for shows.
But you can only suppress resentment for so long. What am I resentful about? The details don’t matter as much as the truth that I’ve started to paint again.
you, the artist
I believe in abundance. I believe that we’re also pitted against each other, that in order to win, someone else has to lose.
Who wrote those rules?
I want to share this platform with you.
- To try together.
- To fail together.
- To learn together.
- To persevere together.
It’s free to join. A single, 10% commission fee is charged to all pieces sold through the platform and payouts are every seven days.
You’re absolutely welcome to publish your work and sell offline to skip the commission fee, but wouldn’t you be better at ease knowing your sales are secure and guaranteed through this escrow service?
When you join, you also gain access to all art patron members to meet and nurture relationships.
you, the art patron
There’s a lot of mystery that still surrounds the art market.
There’s also the myth that art collecting is only for the wealthy elite.
saïd + art is based on the foundation of education. I strive to help artists learn to better sell their work through clarity of how they present themselves.
With that, I pair my research into also educating novice collectors on how to curate, securely buy, and maintain their art collection.
There are other platforms that focus on established artists and more expensive barriers to entry, but my intention is to provide more transparency to a murky industry and to empower both artists and art collectors to do business together out of our shared passion for art, not with coercive sales tactics.
Accessibility and support for local art is why you’re here.