Sam Chivers is fast emerging as one of the UK's most prolific and exciting printmakers, creating visually powerful and intoxicating screenprints which are beginning to adorn the walls of art collectors across the country.
In July 2009 Sam will be launching his first solo show Micromacro at Boxbird Gallery. This exhibition will be a new collection of original works and limited edition silkscreen prints. We can expect a psychedelic onslaught of pop mysticism as Sam continues to explore realms between material and the spiritual, earth body and the cosmos.... and robots.
Sam's current body of work available at Boxbird has a graphical and retro sensibility that playfully weaves together modern imagery and sexuality. His iconic Batgirl Revisited print suggests a vampiric mystery that's crash landed in a no man's land between Art Deco and ancient Indian Tantric art, and Blue Electric Monkey binds together sock monkeys and digital off cut fuzz with an ancient Mayan thread.
Sam in his own words
From a pretty early time my work has revolved around ideas of a temporal nature. My dad lives in France and when I was young he would send me French Bandes Dessineé by people like Moebius, Jodorowsky, Enki Bilal and Lorenzo Mattoti. Not being too conversant in French would lead my mind to seek narratives solely in the pictures. I eventually made my own comics that ultimately discarded the use of words.
Recently my work attempts to explore the relationship between the illusion of material existence and the reality of spiritual realms. I am attracted to symbolism I don't fully understand yet belies elemental truths, which I hope over time and through drawing constantly in my sketchbook eventually manifests in my visual vocabulary.
I like the infinite possibilities working digitally affords, coupled with the limitations that screenprint imposes, I see it as a challenge to get as much mileage out of each layer as possible. I'm forced to accept a level of serendipity in the print process. It is a constant learning process.
About Sam Chivers
Sam has been working as a commercial illustrator for ten years, his love of the printed image became clear when launching his self published comic/zine Apolcalypso which spurred him on to create the celebrated comic Headcase for which he enjoyed critical acclaim and subsequent publication in the USA.
In 2002 Sam joined the Illustration Collective Magictorch where he worked with a variety of editorial and advertising clients including the BBC, Nokia, BBDO, New Scientist, Classic Rock, and Computer Arts to name a few...
Pre-empting the explosion of the UK rock poster scene Sam was one of the original members of BRAG (British Rock Art Group) exhibiting all manner of screenprinted mayhem with Firehouse studios in San Francisco and at the Brighton Basement Arts production and at other various other events around Europe.
In 2008 Sam joined the Show Below, an award winning exhibition for the Brighton Fringe Festival, showcasing works by illustrators, designers, photographers and fine artists from throughout the UK.
Sam has been represented by Boxbird since it's conception in August 2008, and was one of the highlight contributor to the award winning CinemaScope exhibition in May 2009.
Micromacro - 29th July - 23rd August 2009.
Private view 28th July 2009, to be on the guest list please email hello@boxbird.co.uk.
To see more work by Sam please visit his printstore at Boxbird
