On Sunday 6th October I will be arriving in the Greek Island of Symi to start a month’s artist residency there. I will be the fourth artist to take up residence at Merchant House thanks to the generosity of Rob Dalziel and Jessica Carlisle. I have plans to make some of my own pigments and paints using local materials from the island. If you would like to find out more, I will be posting about my progress on Instagram.
Featured by Renée Pfister
Thank you to Renée Pfister Art Consultant for featuring me in her newsletter http://www.reneepfister-consultancy.com/news/sam-hodge---artist-in-focus---may-201 She has also made a short video about my work:
RA Summer Exhibition
I am delighted to announce that my photopolymer print Pelagic Plastic will be exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Show 10th June - 12th August 2019.
It is displayed in room 5, selected by Barbara Rae and Hughie O’Donoghue, with the theme of the fragility of the natural environment.
The print is a photopolymer etching in white ink on Rives Noir etching paper, in an edition of 20 and is the first in a series of 12 etchings of marine plastic scraps that have been weathered and distorted by the sea.
Chisenhale Open Weekend
Chisenhale Studios are throwing open their doors to the public this weekend as part of Chisenhale Open Weekend. I will be welcoming visitors to my studio on Friday 17th 6-9pm, Saturday 1-6pm and Sunday 1-6pm. Come and see me in my working environment surrounded by the materials and accumulated objects that I use in my work.
Having an Open Studio gives me the impetus to tidy up a bit and to play around with combining my work in new ways. Here is my wall-of-stuff, a mixture of found and made objects.
By the way, Lewisham Arthouse
I am showing my new series of photopolymer etchings of marine plastic in a group show; ‘by the way’ at Lewisham Arthouse. Please join me for the PV on Thursday 14th March 6-9pm
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This group of seven artists and one writer all make work that emerges from an engagement with the landscapes they inhabit and move through.
Often this engagement begins with an unexpected encounter that demands attention. It may be the sight of a single lit window in a darkened cup-de sac, a gnarled piece of wood that assumes the shape of a figure, an abandoned frame that demands to be given a new life or a discarded piece of plastic that will be given the close attention of a precious stone.
These incidental encounters and others like them have opened up new ways of working for the artists showing together in ‘by the way’. Through the diverse media of photography, performance, poetry, sculpture, printmaking and painting they have shaped and grown out of these encounters.
We use the phrase ‘by the way’ when we want to introduce a new topic, something we have just thought of, but needs to be said. We may not be quite suer of its importance, but will share it anyway. It is in this spirit of the incidental, tangential, happened upon and the new, that informs the working practices of the artists in their shoe and gives energy to the group.
By the way’ is a part of an ongoing project called ‘Things That Are There,
Vital Matter - Solo Show at Muse gallery
Muse Gallery 269 Portobello Road, London W11 1LR
Please join me for the PV on Thursday 28th February 6.30 - 9.00pm
The exhibition continues until 10th March, Thursday-Sunday 12-6pm
In Vital Matter Sam Hodge will be showing work made by interacting with the dynamic, generative properties of paint. Allowing the paint to flow, erode, fracture or diffuse as it dries, she responds to the patterns that emerge by attempting to control, collect or embellish. Paintings are not static, passive objects, but continue to change slowly throughout their lifetimes, something she has encouraged in a few of these works by choosing pigment mixtures that will fade or change colour.
These paintings and monoprints, with their ridges, rivulets and pools, call to mind anatomical images of bodies, reminding us that we too are made of stuff that actively generates, morphs and disintegrates.
As The Crow Flies - Bo.Lee Gallery
I am very pleased to have been invited to exhibit six of my drypoint prints of smashed mobile screens in a group show at Bo.lee Gallery opening in December.
As The Crow Flies embraces a contemplation of the struggles often hidden behind a facade. From the powerful portraits of those affected by global conflict to the symbols of confinement caused by physical and mental illness, the artists each use mark-making as a tool to share their own experiences or as a means of coming to terms with the socio-political turmoil that surrounds us.
Immortalising these journeys in bronze, paint, plaster and print, the selected artworks expose the fragility of health, happiness and security. The timely brush strokes and accidental marks act as a contemplation on life's twists and turns in a journey that may or may not resemble the flight of the crow.