Sam Hoskins

AUGUST 4 – AUGUST 27, 2023 | ANNEX

RECEPTION: FRIDAY AUGUST 4, 5:30 P.M. – 7:30 P.M.

As an oil painter and graduate of The Florence Academy of Art, I see the physical world as a magical space of creation and combustion. I throw myself into the center to conduct experiments learning about nature directly. By boiling, mulling, combining, and filtering raw materials, I play a similar game to the alchemists by arranging base materials, like the dirt and oil that make up oil paint, in a way that transubstantiates into a higher dimension. I do not see myself as an individual striving to express myself but instead as a node in an interwoven thread that knits us all together.

When I am experiencing dreams, visions, and altered states, I use art as the bridge. If we stay on the rational side for too long, we become materialistic and discredit them. When we remain on the irrational side indefinitely, we become schizophrenic and have no floor to stand on. By traveling between the two, a painter can play the role of the archetypal shaman.

As humans, we orient ourselves in the world through edge detection, value range, color,
perspective, and proportion. By being trained through the direct lineage of art academia, I am working on mastering these biological and intellectual tools to then be able to innoculate the paintings with insight from the unconscious. My highest aim is to create paintings that contain more in them than I am aware of; sublimating through contemplation and dialog.

In Search of Meaning Samuel S. Hoskins

These paintings are a glimpse into the lens of how I see the world; imbued with meaning. Remanessant of the natural world but dreamy and eerie in its environment and lighting, I strived to create a deeper resolution into the world of symbols, archetypes, and the unconscious. Gathering my ideas from dreams and altered states, I cast a large net into the unconscious to try to pull up something from that well to bring it into the light.