About the Artist
Hi all! I am Sam, a multimedia artist who practices in wood-working, ceramics, performance, poetry, painting, textiles, and jewelry making. Most recently, I have dedicated my time to jewelry-making and ceramics. My style is often abstract as I explore themes around the body, relationships, identity, feelings, and movement. The aim of my work is to create interactive experiences for people that blur the line between art and audience. When creating, my most natural approach is experimental. I like to dive in head first, leading with my gut instincts over precise planning. Due to creating being a way to process personal experiences, creating instinctively feels like a way to honor those experiences and convey them as honestly and raw as possible.
One specific work of mine that I feel represents my creative process well is a sculpture titled, BOOBS created in 2023. BOOBS is an integration of wood-working and textiles media. I approached this project with the knowledge of what I wanted to end with, but unsure of how I would get there. I followed my gut instinct and ended up stacking 16 layers of plywood rings, roughly measured to create a cone. Doing this twice and wood gluing a back piece to keep them together, I had my desired outcome. After a few sessions of grinding, sanding, and staining, I turned to the interior where I glued steel wool and pipe cleaners inside. From what was once a sheet of plywood, BOOBS emerged to be an interactive, tactile work of art that conveys the bodily trauma of sexual assault. Its interactive component that encourages the audience to feel inside, shares a personal experience of my own, while also educating the public on how it feels to have your body violated. In this piece, I hoped to expand people’s understanding of sexual assault and its impact on ones body.
Inspiration stems from...
Artists like Indigo De Souza, Rob Kangas, Audre Lorde, Tracey Emin, bell hooks, Tina Maria Elena
and the beings in my life shown below!
