Reviewed Friday 29th June 2012
Viewing Sam Squires’s mixed media paintings is akin to hearing a silent scream. He is an emerging artist, not in the technical sense of having graduated within five years, but in the true sense of a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis.
As with all art and artists, the work speaks louder than this articulate and slightly shy painter, and I have the strong sense that the resulting communication is a revelation to the maker himself.
Struggling simultaneously to hide and reveal, remember, and layer into current realities, these seemingly chaotic paintings have a hidden structure within which there are glimpses of experiences foreign to yourself. They have the ability to take the viewer into someone else’s time-line and, as a result, can leave one with a slight feeling of disorientation.
This work is not an exploration of technique, in fact there’s nothing controlled here, it’s a pure outpouring of passionate confusion and searching for meaning within experience and memory.
The power and emotion of these works is in no way restricted by lack of technical knowledge, and the further development of this artist is one we will all profit from watching.
The Reading Room web site
Exhibition details on Facebook
Location: The Reading Room, 153 Hindley Street, Adelaide
Opening times: 2pm – 7pm Monday – Saturday, 29th June – 29th July
Reviewed by Christine Pyman, Visual Arts Critic, Glam Adelaide
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