Exhibition

Sam Foley

28 Nov 2015 – 7 Feb 2016

Sam Foley Moving Image Paintings: Past to Present

Sam Foley’s large painting of the nocturnal central city of Berlin was much admired when it was exhibited at Pātaka in late 2013 among the Wallace Art Awards finalists of that year. What visitors enjoyed so much about this work was the extraordinary way Sam managed to animate his meticulously rendered nocturnal image of this historically significant European city by projecting spectral points of light that move across its otherwise static surface.

The addition of such projections totally transforms what would otherwise be static hyper-real interpretations of contemporary urban night scenes into something mysterious and otherworldly. Ghostly evocations of the head and tail lights of cars, trucks, busses and trains travel along otherwise deserted nocturnal streets.

Sam’s solo exhibition at Pātaka presents a selected survey of his paintings with animated projections as they have evolved over the last eight years. Most are urban nocturnes but there is also a work from 2010 of the Otira Gorge in which the sparkling water cascades down the canvas. The most recent works feature landscapes from the Porirua region.

Based in Dunedin, Sam exhibits internationally, with works placed in a number of public and private collections. Over the last decade he has been a regular visitor to Europe, exhibiting with projects throughout Europe, and Scandinavia. He was the recipient of the 2013 Kaipara Foundation Wallace Arts Trust Award, which included a four month residency at Altes Spital, in Switzerland. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb74vnRaAmE Above: Moving Image Painting (digital projection over oil on canvas), 200 x 120cm Sam Foley, Wallace Art Award Entry 2015 (selected finalist)