Installation view of works by Samantha McCurdy, including her 2019 piece Sun (right).
Photo: Courtesy of Galleri Urbane
Next Big Things: Samantha McCurdy
The Los Angeles–based artist creates striking latex works that sit between painting and sculpture.
Samantha McCurdy. Photo: Katie McCurdy
A self-proclaimed “natural troublemaker,” Los Angeles–based Samantha McCurdy creates works that hover between painting and sculpture. In a technique sparked by her mother poking a hole in one of her paintings while storing it, the Maryland Institute College of Art graduate stretches spandex over a protuberance and then paints latex in a range of colors over the fabric. There’s a mystery to what lies beneath, and the final creations subtly reference body parts in a rather abstract form of figuration.
Touchy subject: “My gallerist told me that all the works get touched in her booths, but mine get touched the most. That’s a huge compliment—that people feel this need to reach out and be so bold.”
Samantha McCurdy, Space Between Pearls and Stars, 2019. Photo: Courtesy of Galleri Urbane
“Samantha’s artwork encapsulates everything I love about design—material experimentation, sculpture, and graphic quality—in an unexpected and elevated form.”
Kelly Wearstler, designer
Samantha McCurdy, Sun, 2019. Photo: Courtesy of Galleri Urbane
Up next: “I’m in a group show at the Standard, Miami Beach called ‘Daisies’ during Miami Art Week, and my solo show at Galleri Urbane in Dallas opens this February.”
A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2021 Winter Issue under the headline “Next Big Things.” Subscribe to the magazine.
Cover: Installation view of works by Samantha McCurdy, including her 2019 piece Sun (right).
Photo: Courtesy of Galleri Urbane
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