Listening, honouring, and reciprocating, respecting knowledges sung and held, may they be protected, as I make without taking more than I give.
Hugo Michell Gallery
mail@hugomichellgallery.com
(08) 8331 8000
260 Portrush Rd, Beulah Park SA 5067
Sam Gold’s work begins through the politics of touch, where skin meets material and how the impact of pressure leaves a mark. Working across ceramics and expanded sculpture, Gold considers the politics of touch, bodily knowledge, queer ecologies and the ways materials and bodies are continually shaped through contact, pressure and care.
Sam Gold (they/them) is a trans non-binary contemporary artist living and working on Tarntanya, Kaurna Yarta. Represented by Hugo Michell Gallery and a JamFactory alum, Gold has developed a sculptural practice grounded in ceramics while increasingly moving across material, spatial and interdisciplinary forms. Clay remains central: a responsive body that yields, resists, records contact and makes visible the conditions under which it has been handled.
Gold comes from a multidisciplinary background spanning Furniture Design and Technology, Transpersonal Art Therapy and a degree in Contemporary Art. These intersecting fields have shaped an approach to sculpture that moves between material intelligence, embodied knowledge, behavioural observation and relational ways of making. Alongside their studio practice, Gold is a lecturer and mentor with more than a decade of experience teaching ceramics and contemporary arts practice. Teaching, mentorship and making operate as interconnected forms of knowledge: ways of paying attention to how materials and people respond, adapt and develop through relation.
Their forms are worked closely, coiled, pinched, stretched, pressed and altered through heat, allowing the behaviour of the material to participate in how each work arrives. Surfaces retain fingerprints, drag marks, pressure and residue. Through layered finishes and expanded approaches to ceramic sculpture, Gold creates bodily and geological terrains that move between membranes, bruising, mineral formations and shifting landscapes.
Research and residency have become important extensions of Gold’s evolving practice. In 2024, they undertook a residency with the South Australian Museum’s mineral archive, collaborating with mineralogists and developing cobalt glazes through site-responsive, non-extractive research. In 2025, this inquiry continued through a paid residency at The Pumphouse, Albury. Across these projects, material, land and environment are approached not simply as subjects, but as active participants in the making process.
Gold is a highly awarded artist, including the Wollongong Acquisitive Major Prize (2025). Their work is held in the collections of Wollongong Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Western Australia, the Powerhouse Museum, Artbank and private collections. They have exhibited widely, including Primavera: Young Australian Artists 2021 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, and are currently a tenant at Mixed Goods Studios.
Gold’s practice continues to expand beyond ceramics as a singular discipline toward sculpture as a field of relationships, between body and material, architecture and environment, softness and pressure, intimacy and resistance. Across these encounters, they remain interested in what materials can teach us about adaptation, interdependence and the intelligence of continual transition.
Lives and works on Kaurna Yarta
Education
Bachelor of Contemporary Arts, The University of South Australia
Advanced Diploma of Transpersonal Art Therapy, Ikon Institute, Adelaide
Arts Admin Certificate IV, Adelaide College of the Arts, SA
Diploma of Furniture Design and Technology, TafeSA
Collections
The Artbank collection
Powerhouse Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences
Art Gallery of Western Australia
Wollongong Regional Art Gallery
Private Collections
The Wollongong Finalist Exhibition, Wollongong Regional Gallery, NSW
Summer in the Stockroom, Hugo Michell Gallery, SA
Responsive Forms, Hugo Michell Gallery, SA
JamFactory's 50TH show, SA
HMG xJMG Jan Murphy Gallery, Fortitude Valley, QLD
HARD, Melbourne Design Week, Mr Boots Gallery, VIC
Collide + Divide, CraftACT, ACT
Primavera; Young Australian Artists, The Museum of Contemporary Art, NSW
Common Elements, SALA - DFJ Gallery space, curated by JamFactory
CERAMIX, Manly Art Gallery and Museum, NSW
The Nature of Being, DFJ Gallery space, curated by CCH, SA
Section A, Southwest Contemporary, SA
STARBURST, End Space Gallery, SA
Canberra Design Fair, CraftACT, ACT
Material Girls, Praxisartspace, SA
A Common Thread, CraftACT, ACT
Aequalis, The Australian Ceramic Triennial, Warf 1 Hobart, TAS
The Helpmann Graduate Exhibition, Drill Hall, SA
Essential Forms, GAGPROJECTS | Greenaway Art Gallery, SA
Interweave, Ensemble Studios, SA
ArtSA COVID-Response grant
South Australian Graduate Adelaide Fringe Award
Australia Council Grant Recipient- CraftACT May 2020
Graduate Award for Excellence, The Helpmann Academy
JamFactory Award, The Helpmann Academy
Helpmann Academy Grant, The Helpmann Academy
The Australian Ceramic Council Award, The University of South Australia
The Fisher Ghost Art Prize, Campbelltown Art Centre, Open category Finalist, NSW
The Wollongong Art Prize, Open category Finalist, NSW
Private instructor at Hahndorf Academy - Ceramic Tutor
Short course Tutor at Adelaide Central School of Art, Glenside SA
UniSA Tutor Bachelor of Contemporary Art, SA
Studio Assistant to Jesse Jones, Dublin Irish Artist for Tremble, Tremble- object maker
JamFactory Ceramic short course Teacher- Hand-building and Wheel throwing
Intern for Juz Kitson - 2020 Jan Murphy Solo, Milton, NSW
Samstag Museum of Art - Collection and Curatorial Assistant
JamFactory Ceramics Tenant
Guildhouse The Ghan 90th Anniversary Residency
Helpmann Academy George Street Studio Residency
Helpmann Academy Group Grant to travel and attend the Tasmania Ceramic Triennial (May 2019)
Sam Gold - Hugo Michell Gallery produced by Handmade Films Melbourne Art Fair
Sam Gold, Winner: Wollongong Art Prize (Acquisitive), Wollongong Art Gallery. Sam Gold, Local Artist Wins Wollongong Art Prize, Illawarra Mercury
Sam Gold, Wollongong Art Prize 2025 Announced, Mirage News
InReview, Exhibition Review Sam Gold, Sam minerals inspire Sam Gold’s artist residency, CAMD, Exhibition Feature
Vogue Living Australia, Fresh takes
Sam Gold, Primavera 2021: Young Australian Artists, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Exhibition Feature
Spotlight: Sam Gold on Catapult, Guildhouse, Artist Profile
Sam Gold set to bloom in the 2021 Primavera showcase, InDaily QLD, Exhibition Preview
Art Collector, Sam Gold joins Hugo Michell Gallery, Words by Charlotte Middleton
Project A, Southwest Contemporary, Review by John Neylon
Sam Gold, Cherishing the fragility of the material: Sam Gold, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Artist Interview
Art Collector, Curatorial Home Edition, written by Joanna Kitto
A Common Thread, Review by Rosalind Moran
The incomprehensible wild, Material Girls, essay by Joanna Kitto
Touch and the Haptic , A Common Thread, essay by Julie Bartholomew
Sam Gold, Anna Gore, Emmaline Zanelli: Essential Forms, Art Collector, Curatorial
Essay, Harriet McKay, GAGPROJECTSMeet your maker, review by Jane Llewellyn
Material Connection, essay by Steph Cibich