About the work

This is a drawing of a memory of a tiny watercolour by William Blake. A head, or just the head visible of a body, is swirling in a dark ocean, while a volcano has erupted in the background, the ash in the sky creating the darkness of night. I could grasp the deep below the head, which was blind to the dangers underneath – submarine lava flows and fast waters, like a strange dream ocean. Perhaps this is an afterlife of inferno. Or floating severed in our own world, its soul is already in another.

Date and country of birth

1986, GB

About the artist

Born 1986 London, Sam Austen lives and works in London. Graduated from BA Fine Art Chelsea College of Art and Design, London (2009); and Royal Academy Schools, London (2017).

Early animated cinema, graphic novels, horror film, and science fiction are particular influences on Austen’s work. Primarily he produces 16mm films that utilise a range of in-camera multi-layered special effects, shooting an array of studio-built objects, material and texts.

Austen is interested in creating an awareness of the image as a physical entity, something that wrestles with its non-physical nature, wrangling with an excessively expanding eye that flirts with both the virtual and the real. A constant vortex of looking and longing, both inwards and outwards of the image.

Selected solo exhibitions include Sentient Summer, Sundy, London (2021); Hologram Burnt On To The Retina, Farbvision, Berlin (2018); Run!! For The Present, Deptford X, London (2017); Such Animals, Paradise Row, London (2014); A Cool Drink To Cheek, Plaza Plaza, London (2014); and Angry Film, The Sunday Painter, London (2010). Selected group exhibitions include IMAGE DRUM, Royal Academy, London (2019); Out of Eye, Laure Genillard, London (2019); New Work II: Material, Cob Gallery, London (2018); CHUMMING, The Pipe Factory, Glasgow (2018); Like Honey From A Weed, Cass Sculpture Foundation, Goodwood (2017); Premiums Interim Projects, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2016); Tomb, Shrine, Survey-marker, Spare part, Enclave, London (2014); Dreamland, Garis and Hahn, New York (2014); Open Heart Surgey, The Moving Museum, London (2013); The Instability of the Image, Paradise Row, London (2013); Young London, V22, London (2012); and Seconds, The Sunday Painter, London (2011).

Awards include the ACME Studio Prize, Chelsea (2009).