Samantha Greenfeld

SAMANTHA GREENFELD

Samantha Greenfeld (b. 1987 Los Angeles, CA) works primarily with abandoned man-made objects, which the artist amasses from her surroundings, to create sculptures and paintings that explore how invisible lives and transpired events turn into visible remains in the present. 

As a child, Greenfeld was fascinated by paleontology, and her frequent trips to the Natural History Museum marked the start of her interest in records of time. While working on her BFA, Greenfeld began investigating how time is documented by the buildup of past actions. Utilizing ephemeral and supple materials such as soot, silk, and plaster, she created works that carry traces of the artist's presence in the marks left by her touch, forming ghostly chronicles of past gestures.

In addition to the recording of history inherent to socio-cultural anthropology, Greenfeld is also interested in the more intimate recounting of individual heritage through personal possessions. In her 2017 work “Home,” she built a set of living room furniture out of the moving boxes used by her family members; the cardboard pieces are endowed with a poignant tenderness, becoming tangible souvenirs that quietly commemorate the artist’s visceral memory of an ending.

Greenfeld’s most recent bodies of work are concerned with the larger implications of society’s actions and consumptions, examined through the forgotten and broken items that become trash. The assembled sculptures and the watercolors depicting compositions of these discarded artifacts seek to uncover the latent significance and connections of our quotidian lives that will one day be part of an archeological reconstruction of our era. Greenfeld states that “In a time where people can sometimes feel so alienated from one another, I want to make art that reminds us of who we are together. More than anything else, this is what I want people to take away from my work.”

Greenfeld received her BFA in Painting from Otis College of Art and Design in 2013. She currently lives and works in LA.