Mr Salkic was 12 when he was taken from his Muslim-Bosnian family in Srebrenica.
He survived the 1995 atrocity, but his father and childhood friends were among the 8000 people who perished.
Ratko Mladic, dubbed the "Butcher of Bosnia", was convicted on Wednesday by a UN tribunal on 10 counts of war crimes during the 1992-95 Bosnian War, including the slaughter in Srebrenica.
Judges said "ruthless" Bosnian Serb forces under Mladic's command carried out "mass executions" and showed "little or no respect for human life or dignity."
Mr Salkic told SBS News he continued to carry emotional scars from the event.
"This sentence does not change anything. I still have my dreams, I wake up every day with the same thoughts," he said.
"When you’re left to be killed as a 12-year-old boy in the middle of old Europe, you do lose a confidence in the social justice that is being provided by those who are supposed to stop the genocide.
"I’ve tried not to let either of those parties enter my conciseness anymore because I’m on a journey of creating my own universal justice - the only real justice I believe in."
He said it was his duty to talk about the things he'd rather forget.
He did this through his art, and the tragic events from his childhood were an "enormous" source of inspiration.
"Srebrenica has been an enormous inspiration for me and continues to be. I will continue to live Srebrenica deeply and fully, without my choosing too," he said.
"Even when this story about sentencing and judgment passes, and others stop being interested in it – I will continue to dream and wake up in the morning and feel everything I have always felt the next day and the day after.
"I do intend to continually share my art and inspire other young 12 year olds who are now left in the world somewhere to die and be killed, that they can come away from those refugee tent camps, and they can rise above it and find the new pathways in their lives and continue to be stronger."
Saidin Salkic with his art (SBS News) Source: SBS News
No punishment is enough
Bosnian Muslims who lost loved ones in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre say no punishment would be enough for Mladic.
"Can there ever be adequate punishment for someone who committed so many crimes? It would be too many even for 300 years, let alone three days," said Vasva Smajlovic, 74.
Her husband, son-in-law and other relatives were among the Muslim men and boys taken away and shot dead execution-style after Mladic assured UN peacekeepers and local residents that no harm would befall them after his forces seized the town.
Ediba Salihovic, right, stands up and raises her hands as she reacts along with other Bosnian women upon hearing the sentence (AAP) Source: AAP
"I try to count my dead all the time. I count to 50 and then I'm not able to count anymore," Smajlovic said tearfully while watching a live telecast of the Mladic verdict. "No words can describe how I feel. I am angry. All this comes too late."
Her sister-in-law felt, however, justice was served with Mladic's conviction, even if it came 22 years after the war.
"Nothing can compensate for our pain but it is important that justice is done," said Bida Smajlovic, who last saw her husband when he tried to flee Srebrenica through woods in July 1995. His remains were later found in a mass grave.
Wednesday's verdict, the last major case before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) after 24 years of work, stirred tension in a region still scarred by the 1990s Balkans conflagration.
