Meet Your Maker: Sam Gold

Artist residencies are offered by many galleries, museums and institutions. They provide artists with the time to reflect and create new work in a studio, converted warehouse and other static spaces. So, it is quite unusual and somewhat inspirational that an artist residency is literally on the move.

Emerging Adelaide-based artist Sam Gold is one of the artists who journeyed on the train in May and is included in the free exhibition at the Adelaide Parklands Terminal from June to August. For Gold, who graduated from Adelaide Central School of Art in 2018, this is only one of several projects that is keeping this prolific ceramicist busy.

Originally trained as a furniture maker, Gold is enjoying considerable success with her distinctive ceramic sculptures. She brings her furniture sensibility into her ceramics. “There is technical crossover from furniture to ceramics, it is about creating structures and working with the spaces they occupy,” she says.

She is inspired by the malleability of clay and her objects are created from hand-rolled coils in different sizes. There is a distinctive physicality in her organic and fluid work and Gold is very aware of the pressure and the weight of her body during the making process. Her Riverbed series emerged through time spent walking along the River Torrens in the western suburbs where she observed how water and sediment fall and settle.

Gold is buoyed by recent accolades, winning the The Undergraduate Award for Excellence at the Helpmann Graduate show in February, which was followed by a George Street Studios residency and mentorship with renowned ceramicist Kirsten Coelho. This has enabled Gold to step straight into an active art-making career and she is thrilled to be working closely with Coelho. “Kirsten believes in my practice and has given me the confidence to work towards a solo show in 2020,” Gold says.

Having shown this year at Greenaway Gallery, exhibited with University of South Australia alumni in the 2019 Ceramics Triennale Tasmania and a group show coming up at the JamFactory, Gold is an emerging artist on the cusp of great things. Like the residency on The Ghan, Gold’s enthusiasm keeps her on the move, seeking out new journeys, experiences and horizons.

Guildhouse is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to supporting South Australia visual artist, craftspeople and designers to develop and maintain sustainable careers. The Adelaide Review is a media partner of Guildhouse.

guildhouse.org.au