Artist Biography

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023
Confluence, Northlight Gallery, Stromness
Undulations, Birch Tree Gallery, Edinburgh
2020
The Clearing, Pier Arts Centre, Stromness 
2010
Coalesce: Drawing from the Natural History Collections, Edinburgh University 
2007
The Subtle Ether, CAST Gallery, Hobart, touring to Devonport Regional Gallery, Australia
Oriel Mostyn Gallery, Llandudno, Wales, video installation, two person show with Nick Cobb
2005
The Subtle Ether, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire, UK
Still Life with Rory Macbeth, Kaskadenkondensator, Basel, Switzerland
2004 
Reach, Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown, Powys, Wales
The Sea Inside, IAAB Atelier, Basel, Switzerland
2003
Enchanté, Villa Olga, Montpellier, France
2001
Staring Out to Sea, West Space, Melbourne, Australia
Trying to Come Home, Linden Gallery, St Kilda, Melbourne, Australia 
2000
Remote Sensing, Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
 

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026
The Northern Isles, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh
2025
CAMP, Aomori Citizens' Art Gallery, Aomori, Japan
To the Sea, From the Land, Tatha Gallery, Fife
Making Waves - Breaking Ground, Bowhouse, Fife
In Orcadia, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh
2023
Orcadia, Brown’s Gallery, Inverness
Drawing In, An Tobar, Tobermory, Isle of Mull
2022
Research + Practice, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh
2021
Cutlog | Essential Travel, Society of Scottish Artists, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh
2020
Changing Tides | Tides Changing, Society of Scottish Artists, online exhibition
2013 - 15
Felt Presence Devonport Regional Gallery, Tasmania. Touring Australia nationally
2015
5%...As Far As the Eye Can See, Allenheads Contemporary Art, Northumberland, UK
2012
Poetry Loops, short video screenings, StAnza Poetry Festival, St Andrews, Scotland
2011
Wonders of the Invisible World, Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art, Sunderland
Environmental Dialogues, Scottish Poetry Library, Edinburgh
2010
Gentle Actions: Art Ecology Action, Kunstnerneshus Olso, Norway
2009
Rising Tide, The Arts and Ecological Ethics, Stanford University
Natural Balance: Art & Ecology, Girona International Land Art Meet, Catalonia
Everything Must Go, The Royal Standard, Liverpool
Stockholm Art Fair, presented by Echo, Stockholm, Sweden
Echo Presents: Pudding, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh
2008
ET4U Contemporary Visual Arts Centre Vestjylland, Denmark, exhibition and symposium
Echo Presents: All Can screening, Edinburgh
Pilot Archive, Cockpit Arts, Deptford X, London
Perth Visual Arts Forum, Dunkeld, Scotland, Commissioned artist and keynote speaker
Contemporary Visual Arts Centre Vestjylland, Denmark, exhibition and international symposium
‘Slow Time’, Tasmanian School of Visual and Performing Arts, Launceston, Australia
2007 
Survey, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh
Radiance 07: Festival of Light, Glasgow
2006
Into the Light of Things, Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham
Projektor 06, Café Gallery Projects, Southwark Park, London
Magazine 06, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop 
ArtFutures Scotland 06, Glasgow Art Fair
BBC 37 Seconds Artists Film and Video Programme, Big Screen Liverpool
2005
15th Mostyn Open Exhibition, Oriel Mostyn, Llandudno, Wales
Forest, Wolverhampton Art Gallery touring exhibition, touring to Aberdeen Art Gallery, York Art Gallery, Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery, and Oriel Davies Gallery, Wales. 
Invisible Fields, Street Level, Glasgow International, touring to An Tuireann, Isle of Skye, KU Gallery, Tallinn, Estonia, and Yokohama Art Museum, Japan
2004
Venti Giorni in Europa, Galleria Cesare Manzo, Pescara, Italy
Pilot:1 International Art Forum, Old Limehouse Town Hall, London
Inside Out:1, Stills Gallery, Edinburgh 
TGOZ, Travelling Gallery, Touring Scotland
Feast of Silenus, The Embassy, Edinburgh
Forest, Wolverhampton Art Gallery
2003
Artists from Nimes Biennale, Oporto, Portugal
3rd European Biennale of Contemporary Art, Nimes, France
E-Space, Ann Tuireann Gallery, Portree, Isle of Skye
Fluid, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, exhibition tour venues:  Howard Gardens Gallery, UWIC, Cardiff
Bonnington Gallery, Nottingham Trent University and Middlesborough Art Gallery
 

AWARDS AND COMMISSIONS
2026
Hugo Burge Creative Individuals Award, Hugo Burge Trust
2025
VACMA award, Orkney Islands Council
2023
Royal Scottish Academy MacRobert Trust Art Award for Painting
2021
Royal Scottish Academy William Littlejohn Award for excellence and innovation in water-based media
2021
Fresh Ink: National Library of Scotland, commissioned writer
2020
Society of Authors Grant
2019
Balfour Hospital, Kirkwall, artwork for internal glazing and wall in hub of new build hospital
2018 
Scottish Book Trust New Writer Award
2017
Arts Foundation Award, shortlisted
2017
Samuel Rutherford Thesis Prize for most distinguished thesis in English Literature
2014 
Scottish Education Trust Award, to attend Bread Loaf Orion Environmental Writers’ Conference
2011 - 17
George Buchanan Scholarship, University of St Andrews, PhD scholarship
2010
Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, research grant
2009
Scottish Arts Council, Creative and Professional Development Award
2008
Perth Visual Arts Forum, Dunkeld, Perthshire, commissioned artist
2005
Great Ormond Street Hospital, London, ‘Sky Flowers’ video installation
2001 - 5
New Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, permanent sculptural installation in new building
2000-4
Auchterarder Community School, architectural collaboration for secondary school, received 
special mention in Saltire Society Arts and Crafts in Architecture Awards, A Civic Trust mention, 
used as a Movement for Innovation demo project, included in OECD World Exemplary Schools Compendium, featured in Scottish Executive’s ‘School Design-Building Our Future’ programme and shortlisted for GIA Award and Dynamic Place Award.
2004 
SAC Artists Award, Hope Scott Trust Award
2003
Stills Gallery Research and Training Award
2002
SAC National Lottery Capital Grant Award for architectural project with Anderson Bell
Christie and PACE, designs for Auchterarder Community School, Perthshire
2001
RSA Art for Architecture Award, with Anderson Bell Christie architects
 

QUALIFICATIONS
2017
PhD CREATIVE WRITING, University of St Andrews, School of English
Thesis title: ‘The Subtle Ether: Writing into the Space Between,’ Supervisor John Burnside
Awarded Samuel Rutherford Thesis Prize for most distinguished thesis in English Literature
1993 - 1995
POSTGRADUATE HIGHER DIPLOMA IN FINE ART (Distinction)
Slade School of Fine Art, University College London
1990 - 1991
BRITISH COUNCIL SCHOLARSHIP BELGRADE ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS, YUGOSLAVIA
Postgraduate Specialisation in Printmaking
1985 - 1989
BA (HONS) DRAWING AND PAINTING (TAPESTRY) 
Edinburgh College of Art

RESIDENCIES
Nov-Dec 2025
AOMORI CONTEMPORARY ART CENTRE, Japan
International Artist in Residence
March 2021
BANFF CENTRE FOR THE ARTS, SPRING WRITERS RETREAT
Online session
October 2020 
COVE PARK RESIDENCY
Argyll and Bute
July 2015
CAMP BREAKDOWN BREAK DOWN
Two week residential workshop Scottish Sculpture Workshop, Lumsden, Aberdeenshire
Jan - Apr 2015
TIMESPAN PARADIGM NORTH ARTIST RESIDENCY
Development Residency Timespan Arts and Heritage Centre, Helmsdale, Sutherland
August 2013 
MIGRATING ART ACADEMY: 5%...AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE
Allenheads Contemporary Art, Northumbria, workshop with 12 selected international
April 2008
TRIANGLE ARTS TRUST INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS’ WORKSHOP, Hoy, Orkney
Selected artist for residential workshop with 20 international artists
April - Oct 2005
WYSING ARTS CENTRE, Cambridgeshire
Artist in Residence
July - Dec 2004
IAAB INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS RESIDENCY PROGRAMME
Basel, Switzerland
Jan - July 2004
STILLS GALLERY RESIDENT ARTIST
Stills Gallery, Edinburgh
June - July 2003 
LA VILLA OLGA, Montpellier, France
Residency to create installation for solo exhibition
Jan - July 2000
SCOTTISH ARTS COUNCIL AUSTRALIA RESIDENCY
Artist in Residence at Tasmanian School of Art, Hobart, Tasmania
Aug - Sep 1999
SCOTTISH SCULPTURE WORKSHOP, Lumsden, Aberdeenshire
'Bridge Project' collaborative residency
April - July 1999
GRIZEDALE, CUMBRIA  
Visual Artist in Residence
Aug 97 - March 98
HELEN CHADWICK FELLOWSHIP, OXFORD UNIVERSITY/BRITISH SCHOOL AT ROME
Senior Research Fellow, Ruskin School of Art and British School at Rome
 

PUBLICATIONS
2021
Treading Water, commissioned by the National Library of Scotland
www.nls.uk/fresh-ink/samantha-clark/
2021
How to Hold a Cloud, creative nonfiction essay in Dark Mountain: Requiem
2020 
The Clearing: A Memoir of Art, Family and Mental Health London, Little, Brown
2020
Sink, video-essay, Dark Mountain online 
dark-mountain.net/watching-the-world-outside-my-door/
2016
Nothing Really Matters: Jean-Paul Sartre, Negation and Nature, Environmental Ethics, Vol 38:3 pp 327-346. Pub: Centre for Environmental Philosophy, University of North Texas
2015
Dark Matter, creative nonfiction text and photographs, pamphlet published by Timespan Arts and Heritage, Helmsdale, Sutherland
2015
Ether, creative nonfiction essay in Dark Mountain 9: The Humbling
2015
Review of ‘Petro-Subjectivity: Deindustrialising Our Sense of Self’ by Brett Bloom, ecoartscotland Occasional Papers Series, Issue 4 (2015) ISSN 2043-8052
2014
Things Unseen, essay and interview with Anne Bevan (UHI) Antennae: Journal of Nature and Visual Culture, Issue 29 Nov 2014
2014 
The Content of Nothing, with Judy Spark, ecoartscotland Occasional Papers Series, Issue 3 (2014) ISSN 2043-8052 
2014 
The Curator’s Room, creative nonfiction essay in Terrain.Org A Journal of the Built + Natural Environment, 2 December 2014
2013
Strange Strangers and Uncanny Hammers: Morton’s ‘Ecological thought’ and the Phenomenological Tradition, Journal article for Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism, Journal of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, 17:2, pp 98-108, Pub: Taylor and Francis 
2013
Employability and the Fine Art Student, journal article, themed issue of Transactions: Journal of Centre for Education in the Built Environment, Higher Education Academy
2010
‘Contemporary Art and Environmental Aesthetics’ Environmental Values Vol 19:3, pp 351–371, Pub: The White Horse Press
2007
The Subtle Ether, co-author Francis McKee. Pub: Wysing Arts, CAST, ISBN 09539-222-2-7
2000
Remote Sensing, exhibition catalogue with text, co-author Bryony Rhodes, Pub: University of Tasmania 

CATALOGUE ESSAYS ON MY WORK BY OTHER AUTHORS
2013
Felt Presence Exhibition Catalogue essay, Dr Ellie Ray, ISBN: 978-0-9872560-2-7
2009
3 islands, Pub: Triangle Arts Trust, ISBN 9 780954 578787
2009
View for Architecture, Prof. Satoshi Matsuoka and Yuki Tamura, Kyoto Univ. of Art and Design
2007
Radiance 07, DVD publication, Pub: Street Level Gallery, commentary: Malcolm Dickson
2007
Survey, exhibition catalogue, Pub: Royal Scottish Academy, ISBN 978-0-905783-12-3
2006
Into the Light of Things, exhibition catalogue. Pub: Angel Row Gallery, ISBN 0905634
2006
Magazine, exhibition catalogue, essay Colin Greenslade, pub: Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop
2005
AN magazine, Sep issue Artist’s story (republished Sep 06) 
2004
TGOZ, exhibition catalogue, essay Amanda Catto, Pub: Travelling Gallery
2004
Invisible Fields, exhibition catalogue
2004
Stills: Artists’ residencies 2003/4, catalogue essay Iliyana Nedkova, ISBN 0 906458 34 X
2003
Forest, exhibition catalogue, essays Roger Kelly, Yvonne Aburrow, Pub: Wolverhampton Art Gallery
2001
Fluid, exhibition catalogue, essays David Hopkins, Pub: Wolverhampton Art Gallery
2000
Pivot V: About Photography, catalogue essay Simon Cuthbert, ISBN 0 646 40369 9
2000
Remote Sensing, sole author, exhibition catalogue, Pub: University of Tasmania

ARTWORK IN PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
National Library of Scotland
Royal Scottish Academy
University College London
NHS Lothians
NHS Orkney