BILL SAMPSON

AKA: Bill Sampson

Born: 1964 Melbourne

• Abstract
• Conceptual
• Contemporary
• Digital
• Drawings
• Installation
• Mixed Media
• Painter
• Photographer
• Print Maker
• Sculptor
• Established

I read a short story once about a competition between two villages in India that each owned an elephant. The descriptions of their respective elephants, their behaviour, and how they were garlanded etcetera, were extraordinarily intricate. One could almost see and smell the elephants. Yet eventually the judges’ determined that one elephant was dead!
What the reader slowly realises, is that neither elephant was in fact alive – and what the villagers were attempting to do, was to keep precious and alive the memory of their elephant, for that was all that was left and even that could be lost.
May 2011

Education:
2007 Ph.D, (Fine Art), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne
2003/4 SRDP, The Slade, UCL, London
2002 BFA Honours, VCA
2001 BFA (Drawing), VCA
2000 On exchange, The Slade, London
Earlier degrees in Economics and Law.

Solo Exhibitions:
2011 Longer Little Deaths, VAC Latrobe Uni. Gallery, Bendigo
2010 Little Deaths, [MARS] Gallery, Melbourne
2009 rocoCoZenism, [MARS] Gallery
2008 Dog whistling, Woodbine Galley, Malmsbury
2007 Prettybad, Margaret Lawrence Gallery
No Gods Past this Point, [MARS] Gallery
2006 GORGEOUS but…, Linden St. Kilda Contemporary Art Gallery
2005 Troy, VCA
2004 Perfidy, Woburn Sq, London, and at Local Hero, Canterbury, UK
2003 Sunyata, Linden Contemporary Art Gallery, St. Kilda
2001 Projected Importance, Gipps Street Gallery, Richmond
2000 Flag Waving, The Cruciform Building, UCL, London

Selected Group Exhibitions from 2002:
2011 Korean Art Fair, Seoul, Korea; Melbourne Art Fair, Melbourne; Otherness, Caspar Gallery, Castlemaine Fringe Festival; Live Work Play, Bayside Gall.; Shelved, Dear Patti Smith Gall, Fitzroy
2010 Rick Amor Drawing Prize Exhibition, Ballarat Gallery
A4, Lot This (8 editions), Westspace, Melbourne
In the Kitchen Sink, [MARS] Gallery
This is Not a Christmas Show, [MARS] Gallery
2009 I saw myself in your eyes, Jugglers Art Space, Brisbane, Qld.
2007 Ecoforum, Brisbane, Qld.; Splat, Albury Regional Gallery, NSW
2006 On, Cover Up Gallery, London
[MARS] Gallery, Port Melbourne; Southside Art Project, Office Hon. J Thwaites, Treasury Place
2005 UMPA Art Prize (winner), George Paton Gallery, Uni. of Melbourne;
Territorial Paranoia, VCA; Art for Science, Nellie Castan Gallery, Sth. Yarra
2004 Post Graduate Exhibition, The Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London
2003 Selected Graduates from VCA, RMIT & Monash, Dickerson Gallery.
The Keith & Elisabeth Murdoch Travelling Fellowship, VCA Gallery.
Motor Works 2003, Motor Works, Melbourne; Bernhard, video screening, TV Channel 31
2002 Athenaeum Club, Melb; Transit Narratives, “Le Venezie” Treviso, Italy
Noxious Laughing Gas, Forum & Exhibition, VCA Gallery

Collections:
Artbank; Athenaeum Club, Melb; Dawson & McDonald Coll, Melb; Hallis Coll, Melb. and Sydney; NAB Ltd; Rusden College, Monash Uni; Susie & Scott Livesey Coll, Melb; The First State Coll, Melb; Mahlab Recruitment; VCA Collection; WMC Ltd; Private collections in Australia, NZ, UK & Germany.

Awards:
2010 Rick Amor Drawing Prize (shortlisted)
2006 Vulcan Steel Art Prize
2005 UMPA Art Prize, George Paton Gallery, Uni. of Melbourne
2004 West Dean College Residency, UK
2003 The Keith & Elisabeth Murdoch Travelling Fellowship; APA Scholarship & RTP
2002 Athenaeum Club Visual Art Award; and, PROUD College Collection.
2000 The Gary Fell Award.

Bibliography:
Diary of an Artist, Suzanne Donisthorpe (producer), 4 weekly segments, Arts Program ABC Radio National 621; Dr. Edward Colless, Testing Rorschach, Issue 53 July-Sept. 2010 Australian Art Collector; Dr. S Mestrom, The Kiss: Pushing Against the Limits, ‘Little Deaths Catal. essay June 2010, Lorenzo Chiesa & Alberto Toscano (eds.) The Italian Difference; Between Nihilism and Biopolitics, re.press, Melbourne, 2009 (book cover); P Ashton & Oths. (eds.), The Spirit of the Age: Hegel and the Fate of Thinking, re. press, Melb, 08, book cover; David O’Halloran, Politics of Picturing, artinfo.com.au/articles/read/politics-of-picturing; Megan Backhouse, The critics, Art Around the Galleries, The Age, 8/09/07; Dr. Justin Clemens, Banging on about Nothing, Prettybad Catalogue 05/07; Dr. Alison Inglis, Prettybad Catalogue 05/07; Edward Colless, Undiscovered, Art Collector 04/07, Dr. Alison Inglis, Gorgeous But…, Catalogue, 17/8/06; Megan Backhouse, The Critics, The Age, 22/4/06; Mischa Merz, Teaching the suits to suit themselves, Herald Sun, 25/5/05; Cet. Par., co-ed and contributor, 04; Lucinda Strahan, Art history’s op-shop, The Age, 1/5/03; Helen Crowe, Stonnington Leader, 21/4/03; Love ya Work, The Australian, 17/4/03; Megan Backhouse, The Age, 16/3/03; Georgina Safe, The Australian, 11/4/03; Alison Barclay, Angels win for artist, Herald Sun, 11/4/03; Gosia Kaszubska, Port Phillip Leader, 1/7/02 & MX, 4/7/02.

Publications:
Bill Sampson, pub, co-ed and contributor Isnt it it, Melbourne, 2009; Kate Daw & Vikki McInnes (eds.), Bureau, ‘Upon reflection: 17 months post “Prettybad”’, VCA Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Uni. of Melb., 2008; Bill Sampson, publisher, co-ed. and contributor, A VOM POW DT POI: another incomplete compendium of the contemporary vocabulary of art, Melbourne; Bill Sampson, pub, co-ed and contributor, it’s (sic): an incomplete compendium of the contemporary vocabulary of art, Melb, 07; “Interviews” by Sara Harvey, Winter Edition 2003.

Other:
Sessional lecturer & tutor in Critical & Theoretical Studies, VCA, Uni. of Melbourne.
Programming C’tee Member, West Space; Temp. Aid Worker, PNG & Samoa ’04-’09.