Samantha Scherer

Samantha Scherer was born in New Jersey and grew up in Columbia, Missouri. She attended the Kansas City Art Institute in the early 90s, graduating with a BFA in printmaking in 1994. Samantha moved to Seattle in 1995 to study for an MFA in printmaking at the University of Washington, which she completed in 1997. She has remained in Seattle ever since.

She currently shows at Davidson Galleries and has exhibited locally at Wright Exhibition Space, Seattle Art Museum, Kirkland Arts Center, SOIL Art Gallery, and NW Museum of Arts & Culture in Spokane. She has also shown nationally in New York City, Los Angeles, Denver, and Kansas City. Samantha has been featured in several local and national arts publications and is the recipient of several Artist Trust GAP Awards. She currently lives and works in the Greenwood neighborhood of Seattle with her artist husband and daughter.

Samantha received 2013 GAP Award funding to assist in the creation of a new body of work titled We Are OK Here. Using images from the catastrophic tornado events in 2011, she will create a series of detailed pencil drawings that explore the aftermath of trauma and the haunting reminder of the force of nature.

Samantha received 2009 GAP Award funding for assistance in the production, presentation, documentation, and storage of her current project “Floodplains.” This project will examine the ways people cope in adverse circumstances and how the media records their reactions. It will result in a collection of larger watercolor drawings focusing further on the emptiness and minutiae of the captured events. Borrowing from images collected from various sources, Samantha reinterprets and personalizes contemporary culture in the drawn and painted snapshots.

Samantha received 2006 GAP Award funding for production, presentation, and documentation of a new body of pen and ink with watercolor drawings. She is investigating how the media imprints our imaginations and perceptions of fame. Tentatively entitled “Weekly Victims”, her new pieces will focus on the weekly television series Law and Order from which she will create framed drawings based on the more than 370 murder victims (and counting) depicted on the show over the course of its run (the longest in television history). The installation was part of a show at Kirkland Arts Center Help me, I’m Hurt in 2007.

Samanthan also received a 1999 GAP Award.