Sinking Light
An exclusive release of new small paintings
Hello Friends
If you’ve been a Life Boat subscriber for a while you’ll know I’ve been very busy in the studio this year. I’ve been preparing a big collection of new paintings for an exhibition in the rather grand Upper Gallery spaces of the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh in the New Year (more news on that soon).
Alongside that work I have also been making a series of smaller paintings of a more domestic scale. I am excited to be able to release this collection out into the world now, and to make it exclusively available to subscribers of The Life Boat for the next two weeks.
These small paintings have been completed in the last months of 2024, in my lochside studio. They are a response to the winter sunrises and sunsets, and the shifting winter skies and waters of Orkney.
The more I think about, observe, read about and try to understand this watery place, the more water dissolves into fogs and clouds. Its identity as something wet that is distinct from dry reveals itself as an illusion. The more I try to represent water visually the less my imagery looks like water.
Recent paintings seem to want to spill beyond the edge of the picture and the edge of representation. As my focus realigns from how water looks and towards what water means, I find I’m drawing increasingly complex webs; layers of webs. Clouds of webs. Clouds as if seen from inside. Or perhaps a self-portrait as a cloud?
The horizontal line is a recurring motif too. Often blurred by a gradation of fogs and incoming rain squalls, the sea horizon’s an edge that’s a continuum, where the seeable slips beyond sight.
I am making these paintings availble exclusively to Life Boat subscribers for the next two weeks. You can use this private link to view the whole collection on a hidden page on my website.
I hope you like these little paintings. Enjoy browsing!
–Sam
Join the Life Raft Co-Working
Since January this year it has been a great delight to do some of this work in the company of regular and occasional ‘Life Rafters’ via Zoom. If you’d like some support and gentle accountability to help you focus your creative work, come and join us. We meet at 3pm UK time every Wednesday. It’s free. We start with a quick hello chat and share what we’ll be working on, then leave our cameras on and work quietly together for an hour or so. A recording of the previous week’s session shared each Monday on the paid subscriber chat.
That’s all for this week!
-Sam
These are all so beautiful, I absolutely love them. I feel so privileged to be the proud new owner of “Dusk” (thanks to a bequest from my late great-aunt arriving at just the right time!)
Your work is stunning Samantha. (I’m also reading your beautiful memoir right now, I can hardly put it down!)
Will you be shipping these smaller originals to the US or is it cost prohibitive? I’m have my heart all over “Sinking Light” if it isn’t already sold.