About Samantha
Samantha is a fibre and textile artist who works primarily in felt. She is interested in the connections between the physical landscape and the inner self, the dreamscape, imagination, memories, and particularly in the liminal space between wakefulness and sleep. She is fascinated by the hypnagogic state, where the rational self dissolves and the transitioning mind conjures sounds, light and visions that arise from the subconscious self.
Sam has held two solo exhibitions, most recently “Self-covered Buttons” in October/November 2024 at Gallery76 in Concord West – part of the NSW Embroiderers Guild. The show was a whimsical and light-hearted tribute to the haberdashery shops that used to be a part of the retail landscape. Sam was a recipient of a grant from the Joyce Spencer Textile Fellowship for this show.
Her first solo exhibition, also at Gallery76 was “Under Cover”, in May 2022. Bright, textural works layered colourful metaphors of conspicuous camouflage from the animal and insect worlds onto the complex female psyche.
In between these physical exhibitions, Sam created a project of felted sculptures in the landscape, called Sentinels in the Sand, photographed on the shores of Jervis Bay in August 2023. These Sentinels – resembling the cones or seed pods of Australian coastal vegetation, or seaweed, moss or lichen – represent unresolved tensions between humans and the landscape.
Prior to that, Sam jointly exhibited with pop-artist Jamie Cole in Kiama, in a show titled “Dreamscapes” at ArtBar Kiama, and with artist and paper-maker Heather Matthew,in a show titled “Occupy” at Northern Rivers Regional Gallery in Ballina.
Sam exhibited with the group untethered fibre artists inc. from 2015-2023. The group staged an annual exhibition of diverse fibre artworks in galleries including Lane Cove Regional Gallery, Manning Regional Gallery, Gallery M Adelaide, Timeless Textiles Newcastle, North Sydney Coal Loader and Wallarobba in Hornsby.
Sam is the organiser of the annual Arts Muster weekend of arts and crafts workshops in Huskisson, Jervis Bay NSW as well as the quarterly artisans markets. She teaches workshops in a variety of fibre and textile techniques, including feltmaking, natural dyes and botanical printing, shibori and fabric manipulation. Sam is part of the Jervis Bay Arts Trail and is currently the editor of FELT Magazine Australia, published by ArtWear Publications.
