Artspace

Huseyin Sami, 'Painting Performance with improvised brush)', 2011, courtesy the artist and Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney

Overview

Exploring the very definition of painting itself, Huseyin Sami’s practice is multidimensional, bridging sculpture with installation and performance. His medium, subject and process is an ever-building thesis on the material possibilities and limitations of acrylic housepaint. In his repertoire the application of paint takes many forms, from painting with his feet while his upper body is tightly bound, to his painting machines where liquid cascades through a layered structure of pegboards to create five different works simultaneously.

Sami playfully engages with the history of art and especially painting as the domain of the lone, genius artist working on a singular masterpiece. His performance transports the actions of making art into the social space of the gallery and his use of DIY, quasi-mechanical processes raises questions around the visible mark of the artist. In Sami’s practice, paint is not a material to be conquered and finessed, but rather is given its own agency to spread and congeal as desired.

Huseyin Sami, 'Painting Performance with improvised brush)', 2017, performance documentation, 'Superposition of three types', 2017, Artspace, Sydney. Courtesy the artist and Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney. Photo: Jessica Maurer
Huseyin Sami, 'Painting Performance with improvised brush)', 2017, performance documentation, 'Superposition of three types', 2017, Artspace, Sydney. Courtesy the artist and Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney. Photo: Jessica Maurer
Huseyin Sami, 'Painting Performance with improvised brush)', 2017, performance documentation, 'Superposition of three types', 2017, Artspace, Sydney. Courtesy the artist and Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney. Photo: Jessica Maurer
Huseyin Sami, 'Painting Performance with improvised brush)', 2017, performance documentation, 'Superposition of three types', 2017, Artspace, Sydney. Courtesy the artist and Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney. Photo: Jessica Maurer
Huseyin Sami, 'Painting Performance with improvised brush)', 2017, performance documentation, 'Superposition of three types', 2017, Artspace, Sydney. Courtesy the artist and Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney. Photo: Jessica Maurer
Huseyin Sami, 'Painting Performance with improvised brush)', 2017, performance documentation, 'Superposition of three types', 2017, Artspace, Sydney. Courtesy the artist and Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney. Photo: Jessica Maurer