Some years ago, I was rushing to meet friends at a Christmas party when I stumbled across it. A mass of tulle, taller than a man, leaned against the wall right next to the upstairs entrance of the LOFTT Gallery, its dreamy, transparent rectangles of fabric arrayed within the giant frame of a canvas. What was this? At first glance, it seemed like several things at once: a mosaic, a collage, a stained-glass window through which light might pass, illuminating soft pinks, baby blues, delicate yellows, ethereal browns. “Who is this?” I asked Brian Ashing and Dale Ramirez of the gallery. “Saegel,” they replied. I had missed an exhibition months prior that had featured her work (I have missed many shows; who, in today’s world, can keep up?) I went into the party thinking of the piece, I stood in the party thinking of the piece – how it evoked the idea of painting while not being a painting, how it seemed to radiate heat and to suggest texture – I left the party thinking of the piece. As soon as I got home, I looked this artist up.
Saegel, 28, is a Trinidadian artist, whose color-driven practice revolves around painting and mixed media. She attended Bishop Anstey High School in Port-of-Spain, and then the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, where she obtained a BA in visual arts (special) with first class honors. In 2025, she was one of four artists selected from out of scores of applicants for Royal Caribbean’s Artist Discovery Program. In the same year, her solo show Finding My Way Back was put on at the Art Society of Trinidad and Tobago – following 2024’s Genesis at LOFTT Gallery, Port of Spain – and she was also behind a special artistic tribute to calypsonian and soca star Yung Bredda a few months ago. Over the past year, Moko has been in conversation with Saegel about her artistic practice via email and what follows is an edited version of this provocative dialogue.
– Andre Bagoo, managing editor
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MOKO: Color is as important as pattern, space and dimension in your work. Would you tell us about your ideas surrounding color being its own subject?
SAEGEL: Yes absolutely! Color, pattern, space and dimension are some of the key aspects that shape this new universe I’m exploring/creating. In this universe, where color is an object, there is also a sense of shallow depth and there is a blurring of the line between positive and negative space. Additionally, time works differently in this universe to how it does in ours. If you look at the piece ‘A moment in time’ [pictured below] for instance, to us what may seem like a few seconds can be hours for them. The colors whoosh together to create images and then whoosh again into other images, faster in some parts of their universe than in others. The colors also have a high level of respect for each other where there is no racial or social hierarchy. They may overlap or come close to each other, but they never mix and never overpower each other. Instead, they just live alongside each other in perfect peace. I’ve also began to explore things such as what will happen if a force is applied to the colors, as seen in my piece entitled ‘Motion’ and I’ve also began to think about the people in this universe. When it comes to the people I’ve began to understand that the colors are like their building blocks and I’ve learned that much like how our memories and experiences make us who we are, theirs does as well but we can see the influence of it on them through the similarities and differences of the patterning between them and their backgrounds. They take where they’ve been with them. I’ve also began to incorporate the sides of my canvas into the universe as well in such a way as to allude to what it would look like if we were to cut into the universe much like cutting into an iced cake.
M: Would you elaborate more on your idea of “color as object”?
S: I have come to the realization that one of the artist’s main responsibilities is to observe, interpret and then show, in order to bring awareness to what has been observed. Additionally, I have learnt that art can be very scientific in nature. I say this because art can be used as a medium through which we can find answers to quench our curiosities. One such curiosity of mine is whether or not color itself can be classed as an “object” and if it can be, what are the implications? Through the exploration of this topic, I have been able to create a new sort of universe through my paintings where color is an organic object, each shade with its own personality, emotions and autonomy. This is quite different to how color works in our own universe. For us, color is something that is applied to objects, but it is not an object itself. In truth, things are more fraught: philosophers have been puzzling over the idea of color for centuries.
M: You have stated before that you work intuitively. Would you describe your artistic process? Where does each piece begin? And how do you know it has been completed?
S: Yes, I do work intuitively and at the start, and throughout working on a piece, I never 100 per cent know what the end result is going to look like. Normally, the process begins with a question or an idea that I’m trying to answer or explore, then I build the piece up layer by layer often overlapping, adding and subtracting from each layer as the piece progresses. It often feels as though I’m building a puzzle and solving a puzzle at the same time. I know the piece is complete when there is an overall sense of balance to the point where there is nothing else tugging at me to adjust it and my mind finally experiences a unique peace that is only felt at that precise moment of completion. If I don’t stop at that moment – speculating here because I always stop – I believe that I will have to go through the puzzle-building and solving all over again and I will end up creating an entirely new thing.
M: I see something poetic in your work, as if it speaks: the density of some pieces, like ‘Serenity’, reads to me like asemic writing. This issue of Moko is dedicated to visual poetry. Do you see your work, with its sense of shallow depth and its engagement of a variety of mediums, such as textiles, as relating to hybrid forms or interdisciplinary ideas?
S: To your asemic writing point I can definitely see where you’re coming from! Interestingly enough, sometimes when I’m lost in thought, I often think in feelings and images and then I have to transcribe those feelings into words in order to express myself to others. This proves itself to be difficult at times, so I usually find myself using metaphors and examples to share what’s going on on the inside to people on the outside. What I’ve found with my recent body of work is that I am able to express different topics on the canvas in a similar language that my mind uses in thought. A language that communicates through feelings and images as opposed to literal words. I find it to be a very efficient form of communication as a shared feeling can communicate much deeper meaning than words can. Also, since I work intuitively, it’s only when I’m finished with a piece and I look at it that I’m able to name it, because it looks like what the name feels like. To answer your second point, no I do not see my work as relating to hybrid forms or interdisciplinary ideas per se. Rather, I see it as a single form, a universe that is composed of various pieces of matter that carry the same signature. So, even though I use mixed media and mixed schools of thought, each medium or thought is not read as its own separate identity, but instead they’re all ingredients that are blended together to make a whole and are read as whole, like a complex, maximally decorated, multilayered cake.
M: Who are your artistic influences?
S: I’ve looked at loads of art throughout the years, but I will say my strongest influences have been works by Shawn Peters, Carrie Moyer and to this list I will add God.
M: Would you tell us more about your interest in textiles and how that might relate to your painting practice?
S: What interests me with textiles is the duality it allows. I enjoy this kind of tango between using fabric as though it is paint and painting as though I’m collaging. This allows for the medium to no longer signify the piece but for the medium to simply be a tool of expression. For instance, as human beings we are made up of cells, but when you look at your brother or sister you don’t simply see cells you see the human. So, I don’t want you to simply see a painting, I want you to see the world I’m creating.
M: What was your experience like studying visual art at the University of the West Indies?
S: My art degree was honestly one of the best times of my life! I enjoyed it thoroughly. During my first year, I took part in a lot of the campus activities, and it was truly a wonderful culturally rich experience. I got to meet and make friends with people from all over the Caribbean and even some for Hawaii and as floor rep I was very much involved in hall life and events, it was a blast! DCFA (the Department of Creative and Festival Arts) also became a peaceful place for me to spend my time even though some of the infrastructure really needed a revamp. Some of the classes I took really deepened my understanding of and appreciation for Trinbagonian history and culture and it felt good to be able to do a degree in something that I was passionate about. For my second year, I took part in UWI’s study abroad program where I spent my entire second year in upstate New York at SUNY at Albany. That year was truly life changing. My eyes were opened to the possibilities of what art can be and how much it can be respected. My third year of study was back at the UWI and though the culture and rigor for the arts were different to what I experienced in Albany, I truly enjoyed the freedom we were given to create our final works and how we were taught to think about and defend them. Unfortunately, my third year ended when covid began so we never got to have our end of degree show or cross the stage together, but I will treasure my art degree memories forever.
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(Post header shows a detail from Saegel’s ‘To Love & To Have Lost’, 2024, acrylic on stretched canvas, 24″ x 48″.)