Exhibition CHANGE OF DATE Private View, 2.30 pm Sunday 30 June 2024 at Opus 30, 30 Elizabeth St. Castlemaine Victoria 3450

Bill’s work once teased with what he termed ‘easy beauty’ – large brightly-coloured works made without concern for any of the historic tenets of painting. For example “Rococozenism” exhibition 2009 and “Chance Upon Nothing” exhibition 2013, MARS Gallery, Melbourne.

Here, the immediately gratifying elements have been stripped away. Stripped back to the line. The line here as the mediative present, the process, and the metaphor – combined with an entirely new element, poetic lines.

This exhibition represents a radical shift in process, and the ever-present elements of Zen/Buddhist philosophies are left raw.

Floortalk 2.30 pm Saturday 6th July with light refreshments.

Exhibition continues to Saturday 28th July.

What follows is the LATEST NEWS. But please note, this website will not be maintained except for an occasional post to indicate life.

‘HORIZON’ – New work: a pilot program, Monday 15th March – Saturday 1st May 2021

Located within the front window of FALT, 6 Templeton Street Castlemaine Vic.
The images were exhibited in series and changed every 2-3 days over the six weeks the installation was on display.
The short poem by B Esse accompanied the images. It was written levographically and was made readable via a mirror.
A video was projected over the whole after dusk and until dawn when the light forbade it being seen. The video has not yet been published.
Follow the changing images on Instagram @billsampson.artness

I acknowledge with thanks the assistance of Ross Coulter in the filming and Jim Coad in the editing of this work, and Joanna Jacob (FALT) for the kind invitation to exhibit.

September 2020.
Since the last posting ‘The Second Dive: the artist trapped by his materials’ has taken place. A Third Dive is in advanced preparation. Billy is currently fully occupied in the preparation of this ambitious body of work – working title ‘Horizon’ that will likely compliment other work in differing mediums (3D and alternative photography).

Other projects running concurrently have included:

‘Inked plates: yes but, no but and where do we go to from here.’
A printing project where the expected ‘outcome’ was captured, held in abeyance. The plates were prepared, drawn upon, etched, and inked ready to print, yet the intention and expectation to print was overun by the overarching need of the present. An ‘Horizon’ moment.

October 2019. ‘The First Dive: the artist as one with his materials’ was successfully documented.

‘Betty: in search if essence'(2019)
An investigation through paint behind a glass canvas, and by essay, of Gerhard Richter’s portrait of his daughter Betty (albeit her head is turned away) and how Richter’s MO may shed light on how he chose to fulfill his series “Birkinau” (2014).

A new way to draw in 3D – unearthing new, or old worlds. (Precursor of The Dives)

Large format Camera obscura, and extreme exposure ‘can cams’ as other ways of conceptualising and visualising time.

June 2017: In celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Victorian College of the Arts (an amalgamation of The National Gallery School and Prahran Faculty of Art), Bill was selected as one of the VCA’s ’eminent student alumni and staff members’ to exhibit in a contemporary iteration of the infamous ‘9 x 5 Impressionist Exhibition’ of 1889. The seven artists in that exhibition, all alumni, were Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Frederick McCubbin and Charles Conder, C Douglas Richardson, R.E. Falls and Herbert Daly, who used 9′ x 5′ cedar cigar box lids on which to paint. The exhibition will mirror the format of the original exhibition meaning all works will be on a 9 x 5 inch board.
The exhibition took place at the VCA’s Margaret Lawrence Gallery in June 2017