Michael Sampson

Michael Sampson was born in Boston, MA and grew just north of Boston in the coastal town of Rockport, MA. Sampson attended Montserrat College of Art and received a BFA in 1993, where he studied painting. After graduating from Montserrat he began working for Droll Designs, a ceramic design company in Salem, MA.. During this time period he rented a studio space shared with his now wife, photographer Rachel Philipson, and several of his recent graduate friends.

In 1998 Sampson moved to Ithaca, NY with Rachel, a native Ithacan. In 1998 he began a position at The Arnot Art Museum in Elmira, NY in the curatorial department and In early 1999 Mike and Rachel traveled to Europe along with some of Rachel’s family seeing most all the great museums. Sampson has a home studio in Ithaca, as well as a studio space at South Hill Business Center’s Artist Alley in Ithaca and exhibits his work locally and regionally.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

My paintings are done in series. Working in a series allows deeper exploration of concepts and themes. Generally a series will take a year to complete, and once completed I have the freedom to start over again. This helps to keep my paintings fresh and also gives me an opportunity to try new techniques and processes.

Though I work in series, one constant is my fascination with the figure. My paintings are certainly abstract, but I inject my abstractions with figurative elements. In the past I have used the silhouette (shadow portrait) as part of my process to bring the figure into my work, and in recent years I have been producing drawings and paintings directly from the model. My drawings from the figure serve as blueprints for my paintings and focus on the body either in pose or in movement.

Contact the gallery for pricing and images of works from Michaels’ solo exhibition, FIGURATIVE, which will be on view Sept 10 - Oct 28.