Abi Joy Samuel

Lives and works in London, UK

Artist statement

I am a London-based artist working predominantly in painting and sculpture. My practice explores a complex inner world through the gestures of the body, employing assemblage, dissection and layering to create figurative expressionist, monstrous beings. My artistic process plays critically with time through personal film footage of myself moving slowly from one gesture to another. I then work from this footage whilst it is playing, at times adjusting the speed or playing it in reverse. I think of the body as a map, laying it out flat on the canvas and displaying the stories of our lives. Drawing from my extensive life-drawing practice, I use the continuous line to move seamlessly from one gesture to another, allowing shapes and expressions to form the broader composition through charcoal, pastel and paint. My more recent paintings explore oil and acrylic paint, alongside expressive brush marks, as a way of purging an unstable relationship with my identity within the sociopolitical climate. The use of red has become a foreground for exploring female sexuality and agency. Eager to extend the possibilities of my practice, I decided to push my three-dimensional work, and in doing so, interrogate the origins of the representation of the female form through the study of ancient Greek sculpture. Working with body-casting methods using plaster, silicone and bronze, I mount these parts onto steel frames reminiscent of museum archaeology displays. At times, these limbs come together...

Artwork