“Sam appears to be skeptical of intention, grand design and preconception. Instead we get drawing and painting that behaves like sculpture. What we are seeing are discoveries of subjects in ways that show us their weight and nature and object-ness. Sam is giving herself permission to pursue works that have differences in look and differences in identifiable appearance. Sam trusts—because she’s the one doing the discovering, choosing the materials and directions to be used—that the work will be identifiably hers.”
Apple Cord Fool’s Gold, ST112023011 (2023)
Graphite, Beeswax, and fake gold leaf on Kitakata paper
16x18 inches
SOLD
FUTURE PROOF:
NEWS RELEASE
ARTIST’S STATEMENT // CV
PRESS
Corner Guard, ST112023024 (2023)
Graphite, beeswax, and 23ct gold leaf on Okawara handmade paper
16x12 inches
$1,600
Fold & Stand Provisions (2) (2023)
Graphite, beeswax, and 23ct gold leaf on Okawara handmade paper
16x12 inches
$1,600
Corner Guard 2, ST11202320 (2024)
Graphite, beeswax, and 23ct gold leaf on Okawara handmade paper
16x12 inches
$1,600
Boggy Creek 1 (2024)
Oil and casein gesso on panel
32x36 inches
$5,800
Boggy Creek 2 (2024)
Oil and casein gesso on panel
32x36 inches
$5,800
Future Proofing 1 (2024)
Charcoal and beeswax on Shiramine paper
32x36 inches
SOLD
A real thing about a work which is fiction (1) (2023)
Beeswax and oil paint on Rives paper
26x19 inches
$1,800
A real thing about a work which is fiction (2) (2023)
Beeswax and oil paint on Rives paper
26x19 inches
$1,800
A real thing about a work which is fiction (3) (2023)
Beeswax and oil paint on Arches paper
32x24 inches
$2,200
Charger Cord (2024)
Beeswax and oil paint on Uwazen paper
34x24 inches
$2,800
Take the 5:10 to dreamland (after the Bruces), 5 (2024)
Oil on linen
9x12 inches
$500
Take the 5:10 to dreamland (after the Bruces), 2 (2024)
Oil on linen
9x12 inches
$500
Take the 5:10 to dreamland (after the Bruces), 3 (2024)
Oil on linen
9x12 inches
$500
Airfryer, 1 (2024)
Beeswax on compressed paper
4x12x8 inches
SOLD
Airfryer, 2 (2024)
Beeswax on compressed paper
4x12x8 inches
SOLD
SAM TRIPODI (b. 1966, Los Angeles) is an interdisciplinary artist exploring personal memory at the intersection of consumption and the environment. At the age of 8, Sam’s parents relocated their family from Los Angeles to still-developing central Florida, where her father, a trained packaging designer, had taken work as a Disney Imagineer. The experiences of growing up in a rural cow town overtaken by the tourism industry and witnessing a dramatically changing landscape along with personal trauma, significantly influence Tripodi’s work. Formerly an accomplished corporate designer working at the crossroads of business and emerging technologies, she felt a persistent tension grow between the desire for aesthetic and functional ideals and the weight of consumption these designs demand.
Sam earned her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2024, where she received the Visionary Scholars Award and was selected to receive the 2024 SAIC Berlin Photography Residency in Institut für Alles Mögliche. She received a dual BFA in Graphics/Packaging from Art Center College of Design 1989, and studied drawing at the Royal Academy of Art, London in 1985. She lives and works in San Francisco CA.
ALL PHOTOS BY AMI SIOUX
“Florida, the beauty, solace and threat of its swamps are a motif in much of the work featured in FUTURE PROOF. I find Sam’s work challenges us to recognize—and perhaps rebel against—how we are threatening our environment and hints to the danger that this may cause.”
FUTURE PROOF, an exhibition of works by Sam Tripodi, an artist who was just awarded her MFA in Studio Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), was on view from June 13 through July 13, 2024 at The Jones Institute at Minnesota Street Project.