Artist Residency | XIII Edition | Salomón Sayago (Salsay)

Costa Rican artist Salsay joined Hotel Belmar’s 13th Artist Residency, transforming his encounter with Monteverde’s cloud forest into a vibrant collection of paintings and clay sculptures. Inspired by the intensity of the landscape, local wildlife, and daily conversations with the Belmar team, he explored new mediums and created works full of color, movement, and natural symbolism. The final collection reflects his deep connection to nature and an expressive style that continues to evolve with his personal journey.

December 4, 2025

To the Beat of Salsay: An Emerging Artist in Motion

Intense, observant, and overflowing with youthful energy, Costa Rican artist Salomón Sayago Mejía arrived at Hotel Belmar’s 13th Artist Residency with a name that already held a quiet narrative of its own. “Salomón,” chosen by his parents as an homage to wisdom, weighed differently at various points of his life. Teased as “salmon” in childhood, he learned early how names can bruise before they guide. In time, he grew into its strength, sensing in it a quiet direction and the subtle echo of raw nature. Wisdom and wilderness, in unscripted dance, would become the foundation of his art.

His chosen artistic name, Salsay, is a reclaiming of sorts. A direct portmanteau of his first and last names, it arrives colorful, ebullient and unmistakably rhythmic, echoing the musical genre it evokes. The name mirrors his nature: lively, intuitive and instinctively in motion.

From early doodles and design experiments to forays into streetwear, Sayago’s style matured through small, formative interactions. In 11th grade, he collaborated with a young entrepreneur in the crowded world of t-shirt design, creating a playful, dreadlocked character that embodied a carefree spirit. Seeing strangers wear the design on La Calle de la Amargura, Costa Rica’s iconic student nightlife street, he felt the jolt of recognition. It was his first glimpse of art’s ability to travel beyond its maker.

College deepened that instinct. Festival design projects sharpened his control of line and form. His illustrations, fluid and unapologetically vibrant, drew attention for their ability to hold color that seemed ready to spill outward. His work moved with the rhythm suggested by his name.

Life eventually took him far from home to Gatton, a rural town in Australia, where he studied agricultural science. Later, in Perth, he tended his first garden. In that quiet labor, he discovered the freedom of guiding life. This is where he reencountered themes like the passionflower and began drawing nude figures intertwined with its vines. It was a visual callback to the passionfruit that often appeared in his grandfather’s still life paintings.

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The Belmar Residency

While in Monteverde, Salsay anticipated a slower tempo, a chance to quiet his palette and lean into the forest’s earthy tones. Instead, the cloud forest greeted him with startling intensity. On his first night, a large boa crossed his path and lifted itself into a poised arc, a gesture that felt both like a welcome and a warning. Not long after, a cold front swept in with heavy rain and thick fog. The combination of weather and solitude stirred a growing restlessness that soon led to creative block.

Eventually, he returned to color with a sense of urgency. Bright acrylic pigments became a lifeline. Daily conversations with the Hotel Belmar team added warmth and rhythm, loosening the mood and helping the work begin to flow again.

Monteverde challenged him to explore more than just the landscape. He turned to clay, a material he had only dabbled in. This new direction was made possible through the generous support of local artist Janelle Wilkins, who kindly shared both her expertise and her clay oven. In this sculptural medium, Salsay found an unexpected outlet, one of new dimension and weight. The dance expanded to include fresh textures and evolving forms.

As a matter of principle, Salsay does not paint or sculpt animals he has not encountered in person. He demands presence and interaction to spark his imagination. That connection can be seen in the quiet human traits of his creatures and in the occasional appearance of chimeric forms shaped by memory and instinct.

Salsay leaves behind a collection of paintings and clay figures. Among them are butterfly-winged maes*, monkeys, toads, coatis, and an imagined “Monster of the Month,” which he imagines still living in the Belmar pond (where he took a bold, freezing plunge). The boa that greeted him on his first night inspired the most striking piece: a stacked, articulated assembly of clay vertebrae rising upward as if ready to leap toward infinity.

With their color, posture, and subtle playfulness, his figures draw the eye.

And sometimes, to the beat of Salsay, they dance.

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Artist Statement

“I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in such a unique Artist Residency. Monteverde’s intense natural setting brought me back to the diverse landscapes that have shaped my life from Costa Rica’s jungles to Australia’s seagrass nurseries. These experiences continue to feed my art. They offer a sense of freedom, like the kind I first discovered while tending my own garden.

My heartfelt thanks to the entire team at Hotel Belmar for your generosity, hospitality, and care. From the forest immersion guides to the incredible on-site staff, your warmth made this time truly special. Thank you for the stories, the conversations, and the space to create.”

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Artist Bio

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Salomón Sayago, known artistically as Salsay, is a Costa Rican emerging artist who bridges art with a personal dialogue with nature. Currently in his mid-twenties, his work is marked by fluid lines, bold contours, and vibrant palettes that trigger our innate connection to movement and rhythm.

Salsay’s early creative path was shaped by his work in graphic design and music festival merchandising, where fast-paced visual work and bold aesthetics defined the creative process. Those early experiences helped form a visual language rooted in playfulness and sustained by curiosity. That same spirit continues to evolve across his work.

Formal studies in agricultural science in Australia have profoundly broadened his artistic vocabulary. Landscapes, plant systems, and the slow attention required to care for living things are themes that thread through his paintings.

Salsay signs each piece with his age, not the year of production, turning every work into a living timestamp. It reflects not a date on a calendar but a moment in his evolving journey, a marker of presence.

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*maes: Timeless Costa Rican slang for “dudes”.

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