Featured Artist for September 1999

Featured GiveAway by Sam Jennings Tribes 1 Acrylic on Canvas 12" x 15", 1991 Valued at $300

Benjamin Mckinney Independence, MO

Tribes 1 is one of Sam's earliest works where his Identity Boxes first began to take shape. Out of 5 plus years of features, Sam is the only artist who did not follow through as promised to ship the work of art to the winner.


MEET THE ARTIST

Featured Artist Sam Jennings

Sam Jennings was born in June 1971, in San Francisco, California. He moved to Chicago when he was just five and has lived there ever since. No previous artists could be spotted in his family, so his gift of artistic talent was somehow bestowed on him at birth. He grew up with people around him always commenting on his natural talent.

Sam received his undergraduate degree from The Art Institute of Chicago. He's studied painting, sound, design, and also uses the computer as an artistic tool. He works full-time as a web-designer and it allows him to be creative in a totally different environment with a completely new set of tools than with painting. It was often hard for Sam to switch back and forth between mediums, but web-design has been a full-filling experience, it's just hard for him at times to choose which area to devote more energy to - his art or his web designs.

Making art after listening to music, watching movies, viewing photographs, or watching people excites him the most and gets the juices flowing. He feels that creating art is a natural experience for everyone and it grows out of a person's desire for connection. Connection to the world, to other people, to a certain energy, or even to oneself.

Identity Box: Fingers, 1995 Oil on Canvas, 30" x 40" $ 125

Sam prefers to work at night when the quiet and calm of the night is very appealing. Phones stop ringing, things slow down and the kinetic energy of the day is at rest. He doesn't really have any interest in the so called "art world." He just doesn't want to separate anything he does from the rest of life. There is only one world and that is where he keeps his focus.

Sam wants people to get excited when they see his work. He wants them to like it, enjoy having it around and maybe create something of their own. His ultimate goal is to inspire, and to create a chain of inspiration, a goal he is well on his way in attaining.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Sam is completely focused in his creativity. He loves music, vision, his family, love, freedom, and people who are polite. He abhors mind-death, ignorance, undigested lives, as well as people stuck in unhealthy patterns. If he had to choose, love truly makes him tick.

He created a lot his work between 1992-1994, and has sold most of that work in 1994. Now again, in 1998, many new works are being developed and his Identity Boxes are flourishing. These Identity Boxes are the result of many influences and experiences and are an outward presentation to the world.

Identity Box 22, 1998 Oil on Canvas, 24" x 30" $250

Sam started painting using acrylics and then switched to oil. His Identity Boxes display the conscience intentions, where identities are created, judged, given, taken, built, and destroyed. The Identity Boxes he creates embodies the person. People are put into these boxes and may be identified by a few words, concepts, and/or ideas. Whether it is a cultural reference, identifying characteristic, job, or interest; it marks and defines them.

All of Sams Identity Boxes and the characters within are part of an Identity Box Nation. He paints characters that are primarily identified by their markings, their uniform, their "persona." He uses markings on the face, clothing or hair in the same way that other cultures will mark themselves to represent very specific links to their heritage, jobs, class, gender, etc. He's interested in the creation of identities by people and the ways that people code themselves to fit into an interpretive environment.

Identity Box 26, 1998 Oil on Canvas, 24" x 20" Sold

Sam has displayed many of his paintings in Chicago, San Francisco, and New York City. Galleries include The Art Attack Gallery, World Fine Art Gallery, Northside, MurMur Box Gallery, Moving Gallery and Deep Productions. The digital work he is creating now is more of an experiment. Much of what he does on the computer involves a goal-oriented process relating to his work and he's been exploring the World Wide Web as a creative tool. Sam creates websites as part of his full-time job at Click Interactive. He enjoys creating sites and thinks the internet is a valuable tool in doing research as well as finding connection and community beyond your immediate environment.

Identity Box 21, 1997 Oil on Canvas, 40" x 30" $250

EDUCATIONAL CREDENTIALS:

1992-96: The School of The Art Institute of Chicago


SELECTED EXHIBITIONS:

1998: World Fine Art Gallery, New York, New York
1994: The Art Attach Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

Contact the Artist

Please Email ArtQuest for sales information

A FEW WORDS FROM THE ARTIST

I hope you enjoy my work, it was a pleasure to create it. Thank you goes to ArtQuest for allowing me a place to showcase these paintings. ~ Sam Jennings ~