Samantha Thompson
Graduate Certificate of Visual Art
The current focus of my practice is on creating sculptural characters that serve as prototypes for larger temporary public-art pieces. I consider my practice a creative multiverse, within which hysterical notions of human superiority are reversed and reassembled anew to create a world of mini-beasts. In this world, one might encounter a collection of hybrid insect-crustacean creatures, heavily encrusted with hard spikes yet constructed from soft textiles. I juxtapose the familiar and endearing with menacing details of disproportionate scale, and my creatures’ ambiguous bodies often feature female human faces. As such, my work implies an uncanny familiarity, while also pointing to more sinister questions of human ownership over all in our environment. I create my own fictional species to imagine alternative evolutionary processes and to challenge how we might perceive our importance in our world.
