According to the Roman writer Pliny the Elder, who lived in the first century AD, both the art of painting and sculpture were born of love. He wrote of a potter’s daughter who loved a soldier dearly. On the evening before he was to go into battle, she traced his shadow on the wall to keep him close. This was said to be the world’s first painting. To ease her grief, he created the first clay sculpture. He filled in the soldier’s silhouette with potter’s clay, sculpted his features and fired the portrait relief, just like his pots. Samantha Thole is very fond of this story, because it tells of the connection between painting and sculpture. It is also a wonderful illustration of the relationship between memory, imagination and material; notions which lie at the heart of her artworks.
Samantha Thole is very fond of this story, because it tells of the connection between painting and sculpture. It is also a wonderful illustration of the relationship between memory, imagination and material; notions which lie at the heart of her artworks.
Her works have an impact at several levels: they evoke intimacy and personal associations, partly because the form is often related to her own body. But they also encourage thinking about social relations and making associations about the sublime and monumental. Her work is captured by the following keywords: storytelling, connecting, playing and metamorphosis.