“The transition from Suriname to the city of Groningen was a big moment for me as a six year old. I went from a green, organic world to a concrete flat in a surrounding where every tree has been planted deliberately. I realised then that people are shaped by architecture in the same way that they are influenced by the people around them. Vinkhuizen is a very typical example of a suburb that was built in the sixties. All suburbs from those days originate from a similar blueprint and they are insanely boring to live in. The only way to combat this boredom is to start appealing to your own sense of creativity. Which is why I was always drawing and crafting as a young boy. I even used my own body to draw on. When you have Black skin and you get in touch with the hard water of the Netherlands, your skin dries out so much it can function as a drawing board.
I didn't do well at school because I always felt misunderstood. It wasn’t until I went to work at a nursing home that I started to realise that I wasn’t as tough as I thought I was and it turned out I truly cared about people and was way more sensitive than I previously thought. This was also the time that I started to get really sick. This escalated so much that I was quarantined for over three months and wasn’t able to walk anymore. I was diagnosed with MCTD, a connective-tissue disorder. I have always been the strongest, toughest and most fit guy and now I suddenly was forced to beg this very same body to perform the smallest tasks. An experience such as this one changes one’s outlook on life and for me it was akin to a rebirth of sorts. I came in touch with my spiritual side and focused on improving my life. I started working at the tax agency and worked my way up to manager. I got a son and started living together with my girlfriend. But I always cherished the dream of enrolling into art school, which put a lot of strain on my personal life. After a traffic accident I decided to quit my job and to enrol myself into the study of Fine Art at Academy Minerva. My body immediately became the subject of my work, especially since I was still working very hard to recover from the accident. My grandfather, who raised me during the first years of my life and is an actual shaman, always told me; “If you walk on roads where you shouldn’t walk, the Winti will beat you from them”. This is why I interpreted the traffic accident as a sign that I wasn’t on the right path.
In my artistic practice I work in the tension field that exists between the historical contexts and influences that affect the body and leave traces on it. Usually I use drawings to explore this subject, but lately I am also working with social sculptures. My drawings tend to be rather abstract and come across as enigmatic, but in fact I am making an inventory of signs that reveal themselves in my body and in that way I try and assign a meaning to them. My body functions more or less as my artistic compass. As a result of being ill for a long time, I suffer from Hyperesthetic-Emotional Syndrome, which means that I have developed a sensitivity for certain places where, for example, a lot of violence has taken place. I can get sizzy, start to shiver or get unwell in such a place. After something like this has happened, I do research into what happened there and then I incorporate this into my art to try to assign a meaning to it.
Many aspects in my work also have to do with my origin. Unfortunately I can only trace my ancestry to a limited extent because people in slavery were given a new registered slave name. The furthest I can go is Magdalena Saro, she was the first one with Saro as the last name. Furthermore, my grandfather has always been my great example and I try to work with the same intention, also in art, as he always has. I think it's important to help the world. I work with the conviction that my artworks show things to the viewer. We live in a world where ratio is paramount and the rest is portrayed as vague and feminine, while you can draw a lot of strength and awareness from these things."
Faisel Saro's work can be seen from 21 October in the Museum Volkenkunde (Leiden) in the group exhibition Kaarten: Navigeren & manipuleren. You can also find more of his art on his website.