Samantha Dennis

Samantha Dennis is a visual artist working in lutruwita (Tasmania). Sam is fascinated by the ways society has sought to explain and order the phenomena of life. Her work navigates themes from natural history and the material qualities of fine crafts, such as goldsmithing and ceramics, to reflect on the relationship between people and nature, with a particular interest in how we conceive animals that are often considered unrelatable, undesirable, unfamiliar.

Sam has received a range of project funding, grants, commissions, and residencies through the Regional Arts Fund, Australia Council for the Arts, and Arts Tasmania. She worked on the board of Sawtooth ARI 2014-18 and was invited to join the Arts Tasmania Cultural and Creative Industries Expert Register in 2017. She is the winner of the 2016 Artentwine Biennale Small Sculpture Prize, the 2019 Design Tasmania Jewellery Award and the 2019 FIND Gallery Jewellery Bursary. Sam was a participant of the 2021 Situate program and is currently undertaking a PhD project with UTas.

Sam’s work is produced at her home studio, near the banks of kanamaluka (The River Tamar, Launceston). Sam acknowledges the Palawa people and pays respect to them as traditional owners and ongoing custodians of the land she works and lives on, from which sovereignty was never ceded.