Samantha Scherer – City Arts + The Stranger

August 31, 2016

Below is are two press pieces for Samantha Scherer‘s latest body of work, Aerial.

Tumbled Trailers 1 – City Arts Magazine, September 2016

Samantha Scherer is fascinated by cataclysmic events and forces beyond human control. The graphite drawings in her most recent series reference aerial photos taken in the aftermath of natural disasters. “Tumbled Trailers 1” comes from an image taken after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

“I’m always struck by how fragile the built environment seems relative to the resilience and determination of the human spirit, so I’ve been exploring that in my drawings,” says Scherer. “Formally, I am really moved by the crumpled, fractured, woven, dented, flattened surfaces in these photos. I loved this image for the way the trailers are almost huddling together for protection. On a side note, I’m pretty sure I’m completely destroying my vision making these drawings.” On view at G. Gibson Gallery through Oct. 8.

Samantha Scherer: Aerial – by Jen Graves for The Stranger

Samantha Scherer’s drawings depict in great detail large-scale disasters like car wrecks, overturned trailers, homes and airplanes and lives tossed and turned and mangled. The drawings are also tiny, huddling in the very center of an 8-by-8 piece of white paper, and they’re a little faint, made entirely in pencil. This series is called Aerial. You can see what’s happened, but you are at a distance, and there is nothing you can do. Will it feel familiar? These are beautiful little studies in emotional paralysis. JG