Sam 
Axtell

Hangings for Liminality 

2023 – Current
 

Images from HDTS A–Z West Work Trade Residency March 2024

Big Soft Hands (to hold impossibly hard things)

november 2023
 
How big do hands have to be to hold collective grief, or space for collective understanding? Or to resist so that they can live?

Quilts

2021–2023
Statement: Quiltmaking
Strata 2021-22
HAPIV 2023
Untitled 2021
Valdoria & Cornrows 2022-23

Lentils 2021
Qora 2021



Video
2019-2023

About




Hello ✸
Born 1987 in Vancouver, BC, I was raised up in a small Georgia town and then later in a midsized coastal Florida city. I eventually relocated to California 10 years ago. I’ve been a practicing artist and designer since 2010.



My art practice began in high school with image based media (mainly photography and portraiture.) This is where I have always been most comfortable. My textile and craft practice began with knitting — prompted by my 3rd grade teacher who tasked us with exploring skills we’d been curious about learning in our short lives. 

My work is a response to personal inquiries with regard to the idea of a “hero’s journey,” and explores social issues, systems of access, physics, geology/geological time, symbology, mysticism, and other things unseen. 




CV
2023 Group Exhibition, Obscured Messages, Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, GA
2021 Midnite Snack, Issue 1, featured photography
2018-2019 Group Exhibition, Docuflorida II, TT Wentworth Jr. Florida State Museum, Pensacola, Fl
2016 Set Design, Vagina Monologues, Artel Gallery, Pensacola, FL
2015 Group Exhibition, Last Buffalo Art Show, Sluggo’s, Pensacola, FL

EDUCATION
BFA University of West Florida, 2010

RESIDENCIES
HDTS Work Trade, A–Z West, 2024