It began in the spring of 1991 in State College, Pennsylvania. A child was born, named after a dog and set loose in the herb garden. Upon graduating from the University of New Orleans in 2013, Samantha Jane Mullen took to wood burning and the creative beast inside her freaked out. Art became her life. After 11 years living, performing, loving and creating in New Orleans, Samantha Jane moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico with her trombone wielding husband and two cats. There, in the high desert, she adopted a disturbed dog and shifted from the medium of pyrography to sculpting full time. The universe then sent this odd family of art and dysfunction to Madison, Wisconsin, where they now reside.
Samantha is a self-taught artist whose work explores elements of the natural world recombined in unlikely situations. She uses polymer clay, paper clay and various other mediums to create playful yet shocking narrative sculptures which focus upon our connection to the land, society, childhood and, well, monsters. Her work delves into the weird and the curious, the parts of ourselves we correct and mask and the perceived failures that act as building blocks for the walls we build between ourselves, our community and our planet. Each piece is a love letter to the panic attacked, the shame shadowed, the glittering and tired, the imagination driven dragon seekers and monster lovers, the playful, hopeful, damned but kind. Samantha Jane strives to build a mythology within her work that invokes a magical realm in which we are all little monsters exploring the unknown together, inviting the beasts within like wolves to the fire and giving them a little treat. “Life is weird. Art helps.”