Samantha Dennis
Samantha Dennis – 'Coleoptera' Series Brooch (Wide Longhorn), 2023
"My creative practice is inspired by natural history and the ways it can alter the animal subject, how becoming specimen can elevate "lower animals" to curiosities and wonders."
Dennis is interested in the way that jewellery can define how to engage with an object, prescribing a relationship to our body and implying value in our minds. Dennis' works often contemplate how context affects the perception of an animal, how in the home we might fear the same creature we are so drawn to in the specimen cabinet, and how the beauty or marvel of creatures can be lost while they are alive because they are otherly and hard to relate to.
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Samantha Dennis is a visual artist working in lutruwita (Tasmania). Sam is fascinated by the ways society has sought to explain and order the phenomena of life. Her work navigates themes from natural history and the material qualities of fine crafts, such as goldsmithing and ceramics, to reflect on the relationship between people and nature, with a particular interest in how we conceive animals that are often considered unrelatable, undesirable, unfamiliar.
Sam has received a range of project funding, grants, commissions, and residencies through the Regional Arts Fund, Australia Council for the Arts, and Arts Tasmania. She is the winner of the 2016 Artentwine Biennale Small Sculpture Prize, the 2019 Design Tasmania Jewellery Award and the 2019 FIND Gallery Jewellery Bursary. In recent years Sam has collaborated on a number of large-scale cross-disciplinary performances and installations, and in 2024 completed her PhD study titled 'The Poetic Specimen'.
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Trove: Contemporary Jewellery
27 September - 9 November
Jewellery has always played a significant role conveying messages about the relationships between people and the things they value – communicating across cultural, social, personal and political levels. Trove will feature a curated collection of works created by some of Australia's most forward-thinking and renowned artisans working in the field of jewellery. Exploring themes such as identity, culture, and sustainability, this exhibition will showcase works that are both visually striking and conceptually engaging.
Featuring the works of Roseanne Bartley, Liv Boyle, Lorraine Brigdale, Christine Collins, Laila Marie Costa, Laura Deakin, Samantha Dennis, Carly Tarkari Dodd, Anna Davern, Polly Dymond, Kirsten Haydon, Inari Kiuru, Anke Kindle, Sarah Lockey, Sim Luttin, Leslie Matthews, Belinda Newick, Emily O'Brien, Gabbee Stolp, Blanche Tilden, Zoe Veness and Melinda Young
Read more about the exhibition here:
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Material: glazed porcelain, sterling silver, stainless steel, epoxy.
Dimensions: approx. 60 x 100 x 20mm
Please note when purchasing, exhibition works are to be collected when exhibition closes.