Sunyata 2003

‘Scotoma’ means ‘blind spot’ and ‘IX’ is a reference to Chapter 9 of the Book of Revelations from which Book, Albrecht Dürer drew the angels such as appear here.

Bill used his $25,000 Keith and Elisabeth Travelling Fellowship to study at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London in 2003-04. He has since returned to Melbourne and completed a Doctorate of Philosophy at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne University. His style has changed dramatically as one might expect from the continual pressure on his creativity from travel and study. The title to his thesis is Pretty Bad: Towards an Aesthetics of the Expresionless.

“Sampson shows how the best artworks are clever artworks, successfully walking the line between reproducing old works and creating something new. He adeptly handles a wide range of styles… …‘Absence of Concern’ which sums up Sampson’s whole attitude to paying sombre deference to the masters of art history.”

Lucinda Strahan, The Age