#11 | Sam Gold

Sam Gold is a queer non-binary artist who turned their hand to ceramics in earnest in 2018, bringing over a decade of training in Transpersonal Art Therapy, Furniture Design and studies in Contemporary Art to the medium. The pinch-style coiled sculptures and vessels for which Gold has since become known, push the structural and conceptual capacity of clay. As objects, they materialise a kinship between Gold’s physical body, their psychological and emotional self, and the clay body, allowing Gold to explore states of futility, failure, resilience and grit, porousness yet inscrutability. Subtle shifts in form, shape and texture – from the pressure of a thumb to the angle of the wrist – produce a somatic archive; “…your body is the only boundary for clay. You are the profile.”

In-conversation with Sam Gold available via Apple Podcasts here or Vimeo below.

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EXHIBITION INFO

SAM GOLD
Its juicy when it all fits and moves in various rhythms
2023
Black stoneware
120 x 60 x 10 cm (irregular)

Warm arms reaching over and holding tight
2023
Black stoneware
100 x 240 x 16 cm (irregular)

Just now, from this perspective, I can see right through you
2023
Black stoneware
29 x 22 cm

You seem a bit taller these days
2023
Black stoneware
35 x 24 cm

Words we Devour is a body of work that exemplifies the continual thread of enquiry in Golds practice. Gold interrogates the layered metaphorical elements inherent in a ceramics practice, takes wisdom from the material and its alchemical processes, a tool to process personal and social queer and relational narratives.

Touch, pressure and movement, dominates and impacts the material and can only echo the truth held within, shining a light on the submissive acts of clay as a mimetic material mirror and the maker a gestural aware or unaware composer. Stories are held in the body, gestures, muscles and movement unlayered and cathartically released into the material; the clay is a source for creating awareness without decree.

Courtesy the Artist and Hugo Michell Gallery, Adelaide.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Gold lives and works in South Australia, on Kaurna Yerta land. They received a Bachelor of Contemporary Arts from the University of South Australia in 2018. Selected group exhibitions include *Primavera: Young Australian Artists*, Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney, 2021); *CERAMIX*, Manly Art Gallery and Museum (Sydney, 2021); *Section A*, Southwest Contemporary (Adelaide, 2021); *Material Girls*, Praxisartspace (Adelaide, 2020); *Material Connections*, SALA Floating Goose Studios (Adelaide, 2019); The Ghan 90th Anniversary Residency Exhibition (Adelaide, 2019); and *Aequalis*, The Australian Ceramic Triennial (Hobart, 2019). Gold is a highly awarded artist. They are the recipient of the Helpmann Academy Grant and Undergraduate Award for Excellence (2019),The Helpmann Creative Investment Fellowship (2021), and the University of South Australia’s Australian Ceramics Council Award (2018) and Merit Award for Academic Excellence (2019). Currently a studio associate at JamFactory, Gold is represented by Hugo Michell Gallery, Adelaide.

Gold is represented by Hugo Michell Gallery, Adelaide.