Samara Golden.
Photo: NIK MASSEY; COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND NIGHT GALLERY, LOS ANGELES
Creative Mind: Samara Golden
Sitting at the intersection of art, architecture, and theater, the L.A. talent creates immersive environments that transport the viewer to a new dimension
Sitting at the intersection of art, architecture, and theater, Samara Golden creates immersive, spatial environments that transport the viewer to a new dimension, distorting any sense of linear time and space. In early 2022, Golden dazzled audiences in Los Angeles at Night Gallery North with her exhibition “Guts.” It consisted of a monumental, mirrored chamber that created the illusion of a skyscraper. Each of the multiple floors offered a dizzying, dystopian array of images, from snakes and crabs to twisted, painted sculptures of viscera.
An installation view of “Guts,” a 2022 exhibition by Samara Golden. Photo: NIK MASSEY; COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND NIGHT GALLERY, LOS ANGELES
“I’m making an illusion, an impossible space, a place that can’t be accessed in real life on earth, but it’s a space that feels real, a mirage that includes vertigo—something you can feel in your body,” says the L.A. creative. “In some ways, I think about the pieces as psychological architecture; the physical structure becomes a framework on which to hang ideas and emotions.”
Samara Golden, Guts, 2022, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Purchased with funds provided by Andy Song and Li Ze with the additional support of Atelier 2022. Installed in the exhibition Dreamhome: Stories of Art and Shelter. Photo: Courtesy of Art Gallery of New South Wales
“I think about the pieces as psychological architecture; the physical structure becomes a framework on which to hang ideas and emotions”
samara golden
The Flat Side of the Knife, installation view, MoMA P.S.1, New York, 2014. Photo: Image courtesy the artist and MoMA P.S.1, New York
Inspirations: “I am really inspired by quantum physics and how it dares to organize a way of looking at time and space. I also get obsessed with specific things like reading medical journals, comparing the pigments and textures of lipsticks, or the reason we like to listen to certain people’s voices.”
Up next: A solo museum exhibition at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas in late 2023.
A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2023 Spring Issue under the headline “Creative Minds.” Subscribe to the magazine.
Cover: Samara Golden.
Photo: NIK MASSEY; COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND NIGHT GALLERY, LOS ANGELES
