Bill’s Bio

Bill Sampson has a broad contemporary drawing, painting, sculpture and more recently, photographic and video practice.

Bill attained a BFA (Hons) degree at the Victorian College of the Arts and as a recipient of the Keith and Elisabeth Murdoch Travelling Fellowship studied at The Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London before returning to the University of Melbourne to gain a PhD in 2007 with a thesis titled Prettybad: towards an aesthetics of the expressionless.

Bill lectured in Critical and Theoretical Studies in the School of Fine Arts and taught life drawing at the VCA. Bill held solo exhibitions annually (primarily at MARS Gallery, Windsor) over a lengthy period.

Bill’s work has been exhibited at the Korean International Art Fair; has been a finalist in the National Works on Paper Prize, appeared in several books, and awarded a Grant for New Work by the Australia Council. Closer to home Bill has been a finalist in the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize, Bendigo Gallery, and the Len Fox Painting Award 2016, Castlemaine Gallery.

And last year he was honoured to work with Dr. Deborah Wardle to illustrate her book ‘Subterranean Imaginaries and Groundwater Narratives’,(2024) Oxon and NY, Routledge.  And most recently he has been listed as a finalist in the Len Fox Painting Award 2024.