“Inspiration is a mindset”. Interview with mixed media artist Warwick Saint

Tell us what you do and your beginnings.

My foundations are in photography. I was born in South Africa, where my mother was a well-known model in the 70s. As a result, I grew up around photoshoots. For nearly three decades I enjoyed a very successful career as an international photographer.

In 2018, I decided to challenge myself, pushing my creative boundaries to expand beyond the lens and into mixed media artworks, merging and integrating painting with photography.

What does your work aim to say?

I don’t seek as much to say something as much as I want to allow the work to speak to me and to the viewer. My experience of my work, through exploring the amalgamation of human forms and abstraction impacting each other, reveals to me, the complexity of the human experience.

Ultimately, we are the meaning-makers. The resulting complexity from my creative process allows the viewer to see in the work what is most meaningful to them, and this is what I want. I don’t want to prescribe anything to the viewer other than for them to have an authentic experience of their humanity when they look at and experience my art.

Where do you find inspiration in your art?

Inspiration is a mindset. As a photographer, I didn’t have the luxury of waiting for inspiration to hit, I would have to show up to shoots with concepts and ideas ready to go several times per week.

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