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Buy Now: Ship To Me | Pickup 12h x 16w $175
Buy Now: Ship To Me | Pickup 16h x 22w $250
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Buy Now: Ship To Me | Pickup 32h x 44w $425
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Modern Male, oil and pastel on gessoed paper

© David A. Sampson, 1984

Custom sizes 12h - 54h are available, email for a quote.

ORIGINAL AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE

During the summer of 1984 a promising Atlanta photographer occasionally posed for Sampson. Of the numerous gestural sketches the artist made, two became paintings and one a finished drawing. Modern Male owes its’ name to the forthright stance of the figure and the immediacy with which the drawing was realized while in the presence of the model. This approach is in marked contrast to Sampson’s usual preference for working from his own memory and imagination.

By cropping the figure just below the eyes and focusing on the hands Sampson demonstrates the expressive importance of the hands, second only to the face in their revelation of mood and attitude. Here the hands not only hold each other but bind the composition’s elements into a unified whole.

As a teenaged artist of obvious gifts, Sampson confronted the attention drawn to himself by his cerebral palsy’s symptomatic spasticity. Sampson’s self-consciousness led him to try talking without using his hands. This self-restraint passed as Sampson gained greater confidence in his art and in himself. The experience led to an enduring artistic fascination with the expressive power of hands. Their rhythm as part of the body language of human interaction make hands powerful communicators. Sampson’s art is fluent expression undertaken in partnership with his disability.