Uncanny Valley Painting

Sam is an artist based in New York City. He is currently pursuing an MFA in Industrial Design at Parsons School of Design, with a BFA and Architecture Minor from Cornell. He uses paint, sculpture, and digital media to explore the relationship of perception and creation. By invoking the perpetual human experience of searching for clarity from ambiguity, he honors a universal struggle to build meaning.​​​​​​​ Through closed eyes, one sees “eigengrau,” German for intrinsic grey. This color condition — a subtly shifting collage of faded hues overwhelmed by darkness — is an experience that is universal yet ineffable. It is out of this visual uncertainty that every dream and many great ideas emerge. Sam has appropriated this paradoxical state as an underlying framework for the conceptual and physical development of his art. From drawing out spontaneous imagery in the black backgrounds of his paintings, to the uncanny forms that emerge to illuminate his sculptural projections, eigengrau is the nexus uniting Sam's practice. Sam’s art has been featured in Cornell's Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Perime Art Gallery, Miami Art Week, and one of 1stDibs' first cryptoart exhibitions. Additionally, he was accepted into the 2020 Best of SUNY and SUNY Chancellor’s Gallery Exhibitions. Sam was selected for Cornell’s 2020 Anderson Ranch Painting Scholarship, a \art grant, BitBasel’s CryptoArt for Impact and Innovation Challenge, and the 2020 Edith Adams & Walter King Stone Award in recognition of work filled with promise in advance of his thesis year. He had the honor of being selected for the first digital art collection on the moon, contained in a nickel disc aboard the US' first return mission in over 50 years in February 2024. Sam has collaborated with Ponce Neuroscience Lab at Harvard University as part of his thesis exhibition, and continues to partner with their team.