sam schembri

SAM SCHEMBRI

About the Artist

Sam Schembri is an emerging queer artist currently residing in Edmonton, Alberta. She began her BFA at the University of Alberta then transferred to Vancouver, BC and became a graduate of Emily Carr University of Art & Design and had her solo show “Iconic” at Slice of Life in July of 2020. After graduation she moved to Toronto, ON and worked as an art installer until returning back home to Edmonton.

ARTIST STATEMENT

“My involvement in the queer community inspires my research in gender studies, mythology, and euhemerism. I express modern sexuality, gender, and identity through reworking myths to expose homosexuality embodied in classical histories. All media explorations are informed by the previous, bringing sculptural aspects into my paintings, drawings into photography, painting onto printing, abstraction into figuration, and bridging the gaps between different artistic realms.

My recent show of "Iconic" re-envisioned myths and included floor-length screen-printed mirrors from halftones made from my photographs of queer friends posing as Greek gods/goddesses in drag. I painted 6-foot diameter circular canvases with magnetic backs to create an interactive collage with my screen-prints. "Iconic" was its own space of worship, incorporating personal elements of fetishism in object-hood alongside iconic centerpieces to utilize the ritualistic behaviors of museums, domestic spaces, personal collections, queer expression, and narcissism.”

Narcissus & Dysmorphia

A mirror of Narcissus accompanies “Iconic” as an anecdote to dysmorphia and queer shame. As the modern term of narcissism is quite different to the original myths of Narcissus. Several stories depict his admirers, men and women, inevitably killing themselves for his unreciprocated love.

“Nemesis, the Goddess of revenge, decided to punish Narcissus for his vanity. The Goddess lured him to a pool where he leaned upon the water and saw himself in the bloom of youth. Under a spell, Narcissus did not realize it was merely his own reflection and fell deeply in love with it, as if it were somebody else. HE IN FACT, MISTOOK HIMSELF AS ANOTHER. Unable to leave the allure of his image, he eventually realized that his love could not be reciprocated and "he melted away from the fire of passion burning inside him, eventually turning into a gold and white flower". In other stories he committed suicide, or drowned.

This print is meant to make your reflection look like another, as the myth provides. And what does that mean? To not recognize yourself? To love something that is unknowingly a version of you? To try and love your body when it won't love you back? Here I am, looking at my reflection, creating a reflection, and reflecting in the reflection. Thinking about self love, gender dysphoria, vanity, and Queer shame, in relation to this myth. CHEERS to learning to make history fit my confused Queer body through my art and stretching it out till the threads break apart.”

-Sam Schembri

samschembri96@gmail.com

Contacts linked below.