I think about why I’m making these artworks in the midst of making them, often in the rain and in the night, in a way untouchable by the everyday world—it’s almost a different earth where I am when I’m working and the world that holds everything else is indoors, asleep. Alone in a forest, I’m a different person, someone more immediate and less interrupted by expectations, even from myself.
Sam Falls
Read the full text: Nature, Figure, Time
Paintings
NIGHT RAIN, MORNING MIST (AUTUMN)
2020
Pigment on canvas; 2 parts
Painting 1: 170.5 x 160.5 x 3 cm / 67 1/8 x 63 1/4 x 1 1/8 inches
Painting 2: 170.5 x 316.5 x 3 cm / 67 1/8 x 124 5/8 x 1 1/8 inches
Total dims.: 170.5 x 477 x 3 cm / 67 1/8 x 187 3/4 x 1 1/8 inches
NIGHT RAIN, MORNING MIST (POESTENKILL, N.Y., SPRING)
2020
Pigment on canvas; 2 parts
Painting 1: 170.5 x 160 x 3 cm / 67 1/8 x 63 x 1 1/8 inches
Painting 2: 170.5 x 226.5 x 3 cm / 67 1/8 x 89 1/8 x 1 1/8 inches
Total dims.: 170.5 x 386.5 x 3 cm / 67 1/8 x 152 1/8 x 1 1/8 inches
SUPER BLOOM, ANCIENT EARTH (MOJAVE DESERT)
2020
Pigment on linen; 2 parts
Painting 1: 61 x 199.5 cm / 24 x 78 1/2 inches
Painting 2: 74 x 199.5 cm / 29 1/8 x 78 1/2 inches
BLACK ANGEL
2020-2021
Pigment on canvas
194 x 247 x 3 cm / 76 3/8 x 97 1/4 x 1 1/8 inches
HOME
2020-2021
Pigment on canvas
202 x 148 x 3 cm / 79 1/2 x 58 1/4 x 1 1/8 inches
SUPPORT SYSTEM
2020-2021
Pigment on canvas
340.5 x 223.5 cm / 134 x 88 inches
MOTHER NATURE BROTHER SISTER
2020-2021
Pigment on canvas
199 x 151 x 3 cm / 78 3/8 x 59 1/2 x 1 1/8 inches
THREE GRACES
2020-2021
Pigment on canvas
289.5 x 289.5 cm / 114 x 114 inches
ANGEL OF NIGHT
2021
Pigment on canvas
247 x 194 x 3 cm / 97 1/4 x 76 3/8 x 1 1/8 inches
MOTHER NATURE SON
2021
Pigment on canvas
239 x 284.5 cm / 94 x 112 inches
UNTITLED (FALLING)
2019
Pigment on canvas
229 x 165.5 x 3 cm / 90 1/8 x 65 1/4 x 1 1/8 inches
HYDRANGEA CAGE
2020
Pigment on linen
128 x 102 x 3.5 cm / 50 3/8 x 40 1/8 x 1 3/8 inches
FIRST SNOW
2020
Pigment on canvas
75.5 x 65 x 3 cm / 29 3/4 x 25 5/8 x 1 1/8 inches
FARM FIELD WALK
2020
Pigment on canvas
79.5 x 70.5 x 3 cm / 31 1/4 x 27 3/4 x 1 1/8 inches
BOLINAS APPLE TREE
2020
Pigment on canvas
60 x 72 x 3 cm / 23 5/8 x 28 3/8 x 1 1/8 inches
MESA DAHLIAS
2020
Pigment on canvas
67 x 54 x 3 cm / 26 3/8 x 21 1/4 x 1 1/8 inches
BOLINAS NASTURTIUMS
2020
Pigment on canvas
72.5 x 61.5 x 3 cm / 28 1/2 x 24 1/4 x 1 1/8 inches
MOUNT TAMALPAIS WINDMILLS
2020
Pigment on canvas
72 x 66.5 x 3 cm / 28 3/8 x 26 1/8 x 1 1/8 inches
Ceramic works
THEORY OF EVERYTHING
2020
Glazed ceramic
212 x 82.5 x 18 cm / 83 1/2 x 32 1/2 x 7 inches
THE BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE
2020
Iron,cobalt, zinc, and copper oxides on ceramic
200 x 137 x 17 cm / 78 3/4 x 53 7/8 x 6 3/4 inches
THE ILLUSION OF TIME
2020
Iron,cobalt, zinc, and copper oxides on ceramic
83.5 x 65 x 9 cm / 32 7/8 x 25 5/8 x 3 1/2 inches
INITIAL CONDITION
2020
Iron,cobalt, zinc, and copper oxides on glazed ceramic
Approx. 82.5 x 63 x 7.5 cm / 32 1/2 x 24 3/4 x 3 inches
PACHA (INCA)
2020
Iron,cobalt, zinc, and copper oxides on glazed ceramic
138.5 x 83 x 10 cm / 54 1/2 x 32 5/8 x 3 7/8 inches
UNTITLED (AIR 1)
2021
Glazed ceramic
58.5 x 38 x 15 cm / 23 x 15 x 6 inches
UNTITLED (AIR 2)
2021
Glazed ceramic
39 x 66 x 18 cm / 15 3/8 x 26 x 7 1/8 inches
UNTITLED (AIR 3)
2020
Glazed ceramic
48.5 x 38 x 7.5 cm / 19 x 15 x 3 inches
UNTITLED (CENTER 1)
2020
Glazed ceramic
49.5 x 35.5 x 12.5 cm / 19 1/2 x 14 x 5 inches
UNTITLED (THOUGHT 1)
2020
Glazed ceramic
30.5 x 23 x 15 cm / 12 x 9 x 6 inches
UNTITLED (WALK 1)
2020
Glazed ceramic
26 x 48.5 x 7.5 cm / 10 1/4 x 19 x 3 inches
UNTITLED (CARRY)
2020
Glazed ceramic
47 x 25.5 x 5.5 cm / 18 1/2 x 10 x 2 1/4 inches
Falls made this body of work during the Covid-19 pandemic, a black angel of death upon us. The Plague, Spanish Flu, HIV/AIDS, we have been here before. He found comfort in Renaissance masters, in Botticelli, in Veronese, in how they balanced the limits of the mortal world with the promise of eternity.
David Raskin
Sandro Botticelli, Primavera, c. 1480,
Tempera grassa on wood,
207 x 319 cm
Uffizi Galleries, Florence
(Detail: The three graces)
By bringing devotional iconography into his en plein air practice, he asks viewers to contemplate parallels between figures and ferns, between his actions and the environment, between heaven and the leaves of grass. The pieces are not translations. They merge bodies and nature to present beginnings and ends as one.
David Raskin
Read the press release: Sam Falls, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, 2021
Hans Baldung, gen. Grien, The Three Phases of Life and Death, c. 1510,
Limewood,
48 × 32,8 cm
Museum of Art History, Vienna
Hans Baldung - Death and the Maiden
Sam Falls was born in 1984 in San Diego, CA, US. He lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, US, and New York, NY, US. He received his BA from Reed College, Portland, OR, US (2007) and his MFA from ICP-Bard, New York, NY, US (2010). In 2022, Falls will be the subject of a solo exhibition at MOCA Cleveland, Cleveland, OH, US. Falls has had solo exhibitions at Laumeier Sculpture Park, Saint Louis, MO, US (2019); Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt (a.M.), DE (2018); Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporaneo di Trento e Rovereto, Trento, IT (2018); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, US (2017); Zabludowicz Collection, London, UK, and Sarvisalo, FI (2016); The Kitchen, New York, NY, US (2015); Ballroom Marfa, Texas, TX, US (2015); Pomona College Museum of Art, California, CA, US (2014); Public Art Fund, New York, NY, US (2014); LAXART, Los Angeles, CA, US (2013); and Printed Matter, New York, NY, US (2012).
