Sam Loe (b.Switzerland) is an Aotearoa New Zealand-based painter whose large-scale, unstretched paintings investigate abstract and biomorphic gestural icons and forms. Her process often begins with body sensing meditation, lying or sitting on blankets and pillows to activate rested and wandering mind states.

These blankets become both her resting and working surfaces; evoking touch, skin, and warmth whilst providing soft territory for the airbrushed paint to land.

As substrates, the blankets enhance the paintings' physical presence as objects, creating a double-world where materiality and illusion meet.

Loe’s work moves between structure and spontaneity, deliberate choice and chance, layering multiple processes that record her felt experience through shape, line, colour and gesture.

Hand-cut stencils and spray paint activate initial drawn gestural lines, enabling a collaging of shapes through spray rather than direct touch. The stencilled shapes cover the surface so the works can't fully be seen whilst being made, conditions that encourage chance and mystery. There is a rhythm of conceal-reveal-conceal-reveal, allowing the painting to surprise her rather than being an over-determined outcome.

Loe completed her original studies at Goldsmiths College, London. She integrates conceptual rigour with embodied making, where meaning arises through the physical act of making. Her practice asks not what a painting is, but how it is made and what it does. She recently completed her Master of Fine Arts with First Class Honours from Whitecliffe College of Arts & Design.