Sam Windett at The Approach

The Approach is pleased to present HORSES, a solo exhibition of new work by Sam Windett. Operating between abstraction, landscape and oblique representation, his practice is centred around a process that experiments with accumulating and reworking materials. Through eliminating and editing, modelling and remodelling, Windett allows for the successes and failures of the creative process to be equally crucial aspects of the work.

For HORSES, Windett has produced a series of paintings that employ parameters inspired by the standardised design of horseboxes. Windett observed a formal consistency of the exterior size and shape of these objects, whilst the contents (if any) remained concealed and ambiguous. The paintings in HORSES emerge from the duality of this repeated framework and the various possibilities of custom design and potential content.

Windett approaches the process of painting from a place of discovery, allowing each work to unfurl without prior planning. In some his distinctive triptych format emerges - the canvas being vertically divided into three sections, perhaps alluding to doorways and entrances, while recurring motifs appear in the margins: numbers, as well as spherical shapes that evoke suns, moons, holes or eyes. Others feature smaller sculptural reliefs that take on the appearance of windows or vignettes. These smaller works each begin with a wooden tray-like border containing compositions suggestive of landscapes; night scenes with moons and stars, and of course the backs of horseboxes. Here the surface is interrupted with collaged elements, cut-outs of linen canvas, painted coils of twine and other studio detritus. These works have an existential quality to them, understood as portals, they allow a space for contemplation, where one can be on the inside projecting one’s desires outwards, or stood on the outside looking in.

For HORSES, Windett wanted to create paintings that would be perceived as physical objects, therefore this show emerges as a resistance to contemporary image culture and consumption. Windett’s deliberate incorporation of physical elements and textures invites viewers to engage with the artworks on a visceral level, counteracting the overwhelming digital saturation we experience online by showcasing works made so evidently by hand and with a tactility and materiality that can only be enjoyed fully IRL.