John Saile

John Saile (1960- )

John Saile became an archived artist in 2023. Although he began pursuing art later in life, Saile’s committed approach to his practice produced an impressive body of work over the past fifteen years. He works in the abstract, combining printmaking techniques with painting and photography. Saile expresses the relationship between color and emotion by exploring and interpreting memory, both collective and personal. “I apply colors in context with my mood for the piece at that moment. Hopefully, subsequent viewers can share [in] my emotional state.” In one series of pieces, exhibited at Doubting Thomas, Saile experiments with diluted acrylic, using a staining process on the canvas. In 2012, Saile partnered with DayGlo, a local paint company, to use their industrial neon in his art. With the help of Theresa Boyd, curator and owner of Doubting Thomas gallery in Tremont, the partnership grew into an annual DayGlo exhibition at Waterloo Arts.

Saile’s self-professed goal when making art is to create work that maximizes visual stimulation. Underlying themes explore his personal memories, as well as the idea of using the bits and pieces of experience that make up the human “collective memory” that we all share on some level. Since 2010 Saile has aggressively exhibited his work each year, garnered many top awards, and placed works into numerous private and corporate collections across the country.

After committing to his art, Saile studied at a handful of institutions—Cleveland State University’s Project 60, paper making at the Morgan Conservatory, painting at the College of William and Mary, and select abstraction classes at the Cleveland Institute of Art. He collaborates with Rebekah Wilhelm through Zygote Press to complete his printmaking. Saile’s art resides in the CARTA (Cleveland Art Association), Saatchi Art, and the Morgan Conservatory collections. He has had the opportunity to exhibit his work in conjunction with other notable artists, including Jon Barlow Hudson, Stephen Calhoun, Patricia Zinsmeister Parker, and Rebekah Wilhelm.