Robyn Wilson-Owen (an illustrator specialising in hand drawn and hand made images) and I were invited to exhibit during the inaugural year of the Harrow Arts Centre Gallery with a residency for March 2014.
Taking their cue from William Morris who wrote that “you cannot go wrong … so long as you avoid the commonplace and keep somewhat on the daylight side of nightmare” in the context of making interesting creatures, Robyn and Sam have been reimagining mystical creatures from mythology, legend and their minds. They are exhibiting sculptures, illustrations and mixed media pieces.
Sam has (mostly) moved out of the sea for this body of work. The starting point was a drawing of the skeleton of a Port Phillip Bay Sea Dragon. Since then she has been drawing dragons in the British Museum, the V&A – and anywhere else they appear – and they are surprisingly common. There is a variety of work – sculptural and embellished drawings and collages reflecting her continuing interest in the process of drawing, making, and juxtaposing different textures.