Sam Stocker
サム ストッカー
Using found furniture as central nuclei, projections are added, measured out according to the dimensions of the core piece. Through this method the widths are doubled and tripled, the initial object now raised high on slender columns. The found pieces are bruised and worn, bearing traces of past use: cup stains, broken springs, tiny cobwebs, and chipped, grimy paintwork. In contrast, the additions are anonymous plinths and boxes, their construction method made obvious through rough, visible brush marks and the indentation of screws at the seams. The impulse to alter is rendered visible through these implied actions, the new paint contrasting with the worn patina of the originals. We can see that the objects have been expanded, and yet the reason for the alternations remains illusive. The furniture is transformed into unfolding mathematical expressions of daily routines and unknown desires.
Walking through the space, twinned drawers are flipped and opened up, revealing their internal structures. The potential for storing items inside these spaces has been increased greatly by the additional panels, while the secrecy of the drawers has been removed. There is nowhere for anything to hide. Instead the drawers are down in the base of the structure, sealed away from us and inaccessible. Another work conflates the favourite childhood hiding places of underneath a table and inside a wardrobe to create a structure purpose-built for a furtive escape, dark and inviting. A trolley, normally experiencing free reign throughout the home is now vulnerably perched atop a column, its new destinations obscured and unknown. If the requirements of the core pieces of furniture were to fit into the scale of our homes and around our bodies, by projecting their dimensions, our attention is drawn to how we could fit inside and around the pieces. Normal relationships with furniture involve intermediary objects: tables holding plates, drawers holding clothing, carts carrying precarious liquids from one part of the home to another. With those objects removed, the relationship simplifies to become just about ourselves and the form. New purposes, removed from daily routines can be imagined. New possibilities and uses begin to occupy the voids and hollows.
Written by Katie McGown

The Architecture of Alliance
Musashi Koganei 2013
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GTS Exhibtion Shitamachi
Old Town 2012
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Trolls in the Park
2008
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Trolls in the Park 2012
Noh 2 - Ghost Project
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What it is like without them
2009
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Trolls in the Park 2013
"The colour of sunshine"
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January Exhibtion
Geidai 2013
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Undressing
2013
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Untitled Hashimoto
Cave Contemporary 2013
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Geisai Wood Structure
2014
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Familiar Parts
Badger Nadger Gallery 2009
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Article Five
2010
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Untitled Installation
Reading 2002
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Noh Merchant CIty Exhibiton
Glasgow 2011
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Fair 2012
Edinburgh Collage of Art
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Solar System
Tokyo Geidai 2014
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GD
1997-1998
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Conversation with a stranger
2013
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Trojka
Edinburgh Collage of Art 2013
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Trolls in the Park
2009
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Self Self Help Part I
Geidai Tokyo 2013
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A Libre Novus
Tana Gallery Bookshelf 2014
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SPVA
Turner gallery 2014
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Study Paintings
2014
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Watercolour sketches
2014
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Community art projects
A selection
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Osaka
2014
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RCA Carpet
2011
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A Secret Place
2014
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Nagaya
2015
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Dialogues 3
2015
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Interface
2015
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From Winter To Spring
2016
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Under The Surface
2016
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A Work In Harmony
2017
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Set E
2017
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Figure 48
2017
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Under The Castle
2017
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Anxious Measures
2018
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Prototypes
2017
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Standing Posts
2017
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Silent Noise
2018
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Thursday Geida
2018
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Paint Your Teeth
2018
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Surrogate Sructures
2018
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