Sam Crossley

I am a British/Dutch artist working primarily across painting, drawing and printmaking. My practice explores a mixture of autobiographical and imagined experiences, with a particular interest in the mind, private thoughts and the things that happen internally but remain unseen.

My work aims to create emotionally charged images and environments that suggest something has happened, or is about to happen. I am drawn to the tension between before and after, presence and absence. The works are often introspective, using strategies such as doubling, repetition, patterning and recurring motifs to communicate the residue of feelings: obsession, longing, tension, intimacy and shame. These mirrored figures and repeated marks reflect an obsessive pursuit of meaning, trying to get to the centre of a thought, while often landing somewhere completely different. 

Words and playful language are also an important part of my practice, often introducing another layer of meaning or disrupting the image. Mark making is also an essential part of how I construct and undo an image. I scratch into surfaces, dry brush, rub away and remove paint with cloth – acts of pulling back, erasing and revising. This mirrors the way I negotiate what’s visible and what’s hidden in life: what’s said and what’s swallowed. The act of taking away becomes a gesture of denial – an echo of the queerness embedded in my practice.

Alongside my own work, I enjoy taking commissions and building relationships with other artists, visitors and clients.