Sam Bates is a painter, draftsman, illustrator, and printmaker based dually in the Hudson Valley and Pittsburgh.

In his work, Bates examines what he refers to as “the theatrical treatment” — how and why we treat certain things as spectacles of drama and mythmaking, and how our doing so mimics the world of the theatre. These items of interest range from the grand (the Western canon of war, the Romantic landscape) to the minute (the idea of the flaneur and the Parisienne, leisurely acts across time, the culinary arts).

These subjects are explored in oil painting, printmaking and drawing through an abstract lens, heavily influenced by the decorative arts of Early Modern and Medieval Europe, East and South Asia, as well as the longstanding tradition of illustration for the theatre, ballet, and opera.

Abstraction serves as a method of attuning to and celebrating the languages and legacies of decoration, ornamentation, and beauty that we have practiced and adored since the dawn of art, and Bates treats these concepts as essential to our experience of art and the world.

SELF PORTRAIT (IN THE PAINTING STUDIO) / ink on kitakata paper, 5 x 17 inches

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