De Saboia’s champion for The Wick is Jamie Gill, founder of The Outsiders Perspective and a consultant and advisor in the world of fashion, luxury and retail. He said of De Saboia: “his work was only introduced to me last year by a friend and it struck an immediate chord on a personal level. Samuel’s vivid, high-energy art explores his own personal journey around migration and sexuality. His abstract approach highlights figures, faces and geometric shapes form juxtapositions of Samuel’s depiction of society today – creating the most interesting conversation. There are references to Brazilian culture and particularity dance, famously samba, are Samuel’s way of further highlighting diversity in uncertain times. He believes differences between people are opportunities for enrichment through building bridges to one another through an open ever-expanding dialogue.”

“My main inspirations are nature, humanity and white lies behind identity, belief and faith,” De Saboia muses. “I was raised with a plethora of lifestyles, religions, different perspectives and ways of loving and learning, so when I create, I’m using all the generational wisdom, wealth and memory to create new routes and ways of existing.

De Saboia’s latest body of work continues to reflect his transcultural, nomadic existence – created in four different countries and many cities, the artist describes the paintings as “a journey into emotional alchemy”. Fifteen paintings from this series are included in De Saboia’s current solo exhibition, Metaphysical Poetry, at Maruani Mercier gallery, Brussels. Meanwhile in Los Angeles, at The Cabin and The Bunker, LA, De Saboia presented ten paintings, with his characteristic expressive, gestural brushwork, somewhere between abstract and figuration. Created as part of a month-long residency, the suite of paintings explore the “facets of desire, transformation and the power of acceptance.” Scrawled in handwritten text above the huge paintings on the wall, the paintings were captioned with De Saboia’s aphoristic titles: nothing gets in the way of true desire, reads one. And for De Saboia, that desire might be the creative impulse, that throbs like a heartbeat throughout everything he makes.