Sammi Carr

Statement

A self-taught emerging artist with an affinity for colour and shape, Sammi Carr’s work is experimental, spontaneous and draws on the compositional makeup of the world around her.

Her artistic process is expressive, emotional and explorative, calling on memory, photographs, sketches and environmental stimuli.

Through painting, drawing, collage and writing, she is particularly interested in exploring the layers of the individual and collective human condition, with an ongoing emphasis on the necessity for ‘play’ at all levels of life.

It is the automatic spontaneity, an approach observed in Surrealist practices that expresses the connection between the visual (external) and unconscious or emotional (internal). This is the ultimate essence of play; freedom to express, explore, understand your body, your mind, your energy.

She works with acrylic and oil paint, illustration and multimedia collage.

GlogauAIR Project

Play enables the exploration and exercising of negotiation, boundary setting, collaboration and effective communication, as well as giving children the freedom to explore and world-build free from the constraints of acute social conditioning.

I am wishing to further explore these concepts throughout my work and allow the process to be free flowing, unplanned and spontaneous.

Born and raised on the coast in the Western Australian town of Dunsborough, I have been raised by the sea, the bush and native wildlife.

My mother had her studio adjacent to our kitchen where we spent the afternoons of my earliest years covering balloons in paper mache, drawing 3D cubes on any spare scrap of paper, and experimenting with mixed paints.

As every good story starts in the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, I was back home in Dunsborough, with not a whole lot to do. I was again surrounded by all of the elements, nostalgia and energy that shaped my childhood -reminiscing fondly on memories with friends, universes and languages of our own creation, sifting through sun bleached photo albums.

Collage, Drawing, and Painting

CV Summary

Selected Group Shows

• 2022 Building Glass Houses, Bad News Gallery, Wollongong NSW. Curated by Tsubasa Sherwin-Ozawa.
• Building Glass Houses, Project Contemporary Artspace, Wollongong NSW. Curated by Erin Mison, Merle Stone and Greer Harris for Make Space.
• Smoke and Steel, Volume One, Teel Studios, Wollongong NSW. Group show curated by Harry Phillips for Holy Pavlova.
• Featured paintings and poster design for Short Notice Crew Arts & Entertainment events, situated in Sassafras/Robertson, NSW.

Commission Projects

• 2022 Stop motion animation for song ‘Life in real time,’ by Wollongong/Dharawal based band, Good Lekker. Commissioned by Connor Duke, videographer.

Residencies

• 2023 Artist in Residence, Messejana, Portugal.

Gallery