Just Keep Spinning with Saiga Saturn
- Alexandra Smith
- Jun 30
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 2
One of my favorite scenes in Ferris Bueller's Day Off is when the teens silently wander the Art Institute of Chicago. And while Ferris and Sloane make out under the stained glass America Windows, Cameron is stopped in his tracks by Georges Seurat's most famous work, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
Comprised of an estimated 220,000 dots, Seurat's giant 7x10 ft artwork served as my introduction to pointillism. As we find ourselves drawn in like a moth to the flame, the camera flashes back and forth between Cameron's face and the painting. Together, and feeling surprisingly uncomfortable, we are all pulled so far into the piece that it ceases to have form. The closer we zoom in, the more it all falls apart.
The same feelings arise in Things Don’t Always Come Full Circle, Saiga Saturn's 48 x 96-inch acrylic behemoth that illustrates how we experience and navigate traumatic change. The machine is made of ten slowly spinning circles, covered in dots that begin in balance before gradually dissolving into disorder and then, reformation. As you follow along, the chaos recalibrates into a different frequency. Saiga helps us remember that no wound returns to its original state.
Hailing from Brooklyn, Saiga Saturn is a visual artist and sculptor with an iconic aesthetic shaped by the nostalgia of halftone comics, the precision of pointillism, and the bold energy of 90s pop culture. His artist persona seems to vacillate between notoriety and obscurity, past and future. Where Seurat’s dots mapped Parisian leisure, Saiga’s drift toward the cosmos. Post-human silhouettes. Mirrored surfaces. Portals. It's all very space-age. "Dots are the building blocks of the universe," he muses. "Atoms all the way to asteroids, what are they if not just complex dots?" Within Saiga's artworks, meaning emerges through accumulation. Each piece layers "very many dots" in vibrant patterns to create movement and emotion within. "It's delicate work. Intentional and precise," he says. And it keeps daring us to get closer.
Saiga became an artist when he could no longer pretend otherwise. “I think I always knew, and simply gave in," he reflects. "I finally acknowledged how hard I was trying to suppress it. Life as an artist is a strange journey…but your feet were perhaps always destined to go down that path.”
Just as a single dot can suggest a whole universe, Saiga sees the artist’s role as translating the intangible into something you can see, hold, or feel in your chest. “Art is fascinating because it comes from a unique understanding of life that not everyone has," he observes. I think it's that artists have already recognized what most of us are missing: that creativity is an endless current. They’ve learned how to harness that energy and alchemize it into form, making the imagined visible. “It’s like speaking to someone who can see part of the light spectrum that you can’t,” he adds.
Since arriving in Charlotte, Saiga has completed artist residencies at both QC Family Tree & Goodyear Arts, each of which encouraged growth in different ways. “QCFT emphasized the power of community in the arts,” he says. “Doing all the things alone is mythical and overrated. A team pouring into each other’s cups is how I feel I can best achieve my goals.”
Goodyear Arts, on the other hand, encouraged him to take risks. “I’m not sure if it was just the vibe of the space…but I went big. And after you do that, even once, you know how much more is possible.
That sense of artistic momentum, and the ability to stretch it further, remains deeply tied to community. Saiga has chosen to surround himself with peers who are "a lot more intentional about collective growth" than they are subtle.
“When I feel most creative and can actually transmute it into action, is probably right after convening with my artist community,” he shares. “It challenges and sharpens your ideas. It both inspires you and holds you accountable.”
Sometimes, it can be as simple as someone sending art or a creative idea over and saying this made me think of you. “It often communicates an understanding of my body of work and artistic direction. It feels nice,” Saiga says. “I feel seen.”
His appreciation for duality runs through his sculptural work as well. Visitors to his studio may find resin-cast pay phones recast as futuristic relics. Or a series of colorful translucent Nokia cell phones from the early 2000s. Maybe a miniature yet mighty club cast in bronze. Or one of his newest creations, resin "glass knuckles." Each object echoes with memory and myth, artifacts from the past reimagined for the future.
Lately, Saiga has been exploring new materials and modes of expression, including a series of Neo-Pointillist dots and robots on mirrored surfaces. “New projects excite me,” he says, admitting that his favorite piece "tends to be whatever I’m working on.”
And when it’s time to get into creative flow, you’ll probably find him working to house or electronic music. “Sometimes words get in the way,” he says. “Daft Punk’s Discovery album is an old favorite.” So is he coming or going? Hard to say.
Whatever galaxy Saiga Saturn lands in next, I know he’ll be forming new worlds.
Follow the dots, and you might just find your way there too.
By Alexandra Smith
