Tomm El-Saieh
Tomm El-Saieh in his Miami studio. Photograph by Gesi Schilling
Abstract painter Tomm El-Saieh overflows with identity markers—a Haitian childhood, a Miami upbringing, a Palestinian-Haitian father, an Israeli mother, his grandfather’s Vodou-jazz big band, and Saieh, an intergenerational family gallery in Port-au-Prince that has been running since the 1950s. Yet his paintings evade the Haitian narrative tradition in favor of a twisted take on modernism. “My identity has always been confusing for me, and it definitely comes out in the way I make work,” El-Saieh says from his studio in Miami’s Little Haiti district. “I find abstraction is a place that isn’t necessarily about resisting the things that make me who I am, but a space where there’s ambiguity.”
El-Saieh’s practice extends beyond painting and he instigates the spread of Haitian art to wider audiences. “I’m still really involved with my family’s gallery and working with the artists there that influence my work,” he says. Also a partner in the artist-run space Central Fine in Miami, the artist translates his deep relationships with Haitian artists into the gallery’s programming.
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