Sam MacDonald

Sam creates impressions of fish and sea-life in various states using the tactile effects that metal, its processes and techniques have to offer. He has exhibited widely including most recently at the CLA Game Fair at Blenheim Palace with the Redspot artists.

Having grown up on Lewis, his move to Orkney enabled the artist's love of fishing to resurface and of course this began to influence his metalwork. Observing and catching the fish enabled him to study and contemplate the sculptural form of a fish, from the glint of the scales to the structure of the skeletal remains on the plate. Sam's interest tends towards the reputedly 'ugly' and predatory side of the sea; the remains of a fish after it had been filleted with its 'dead' eyes and the exposed beauty of a concise, rhythmical skeleton structure.

He utilises the concept of fossilisation with the idea of splitting a rock and discovering an impression, not the fish itself but the memory of a fish from an age before. The ecology o... [more]