From a love of figurative painting, and in particular an interest in the way women’s roles and bodies have been represented in art history, Sam celebrates the gestures, textures, forms and shapes that describe a body. Her main interest lies in the viscerality of these painting expressions rather than a recognisable, figurative narrative. By painting from a place of both proprioception and interoception she attempts to open up to an organic conversation between the inside and the outside of the body; a kind of third body.

At the heart of Sam’s practice lies the somatic experience of inhabiting her own body; a mapping and tracking of her inner landscape and physicality.  This is a skill that she has developed over many years spent in self-inquiry through the practice and teaching of Yoga, meditation, breath awareness and conscious movement. She continues this personal exploration whilst opening up to a field of enquiry around how the materiality and viscerality of the work can speak to a relatable and more universal experience of the bodily.

This series of paintings is a result of her Post-graduate diploma this year at the Dunedin School of Art. She originally studied Fine Art and Contemporary Critical Theory in the mid 90’s at Goldsmiths College in London and has returned to her art practice with gusto in the last few years finding ways to readdress and recalibrate the balance between finding meaning from the making and making from the meaning.