Artist Spotlight: Sam Haynes

Sam Haynes is an artist working with photography, sculpture and installation. After completing an MA in Art and Architecture, she spent many years managing and delivering public art projects and site-specific installations.

At the time, she felt less inspired by the traditional white-cube gallery environment and was instead drawn to collaborative projects that brought people together. That all changed during lockdown when cancelled projects left space for personal experimentation.

Working out of a makeshift studio in her London flat, she began photographing small arrangements of found objects and materials she had gathered over the years. What began as an opportunity to focus on her own practice, quickly became a new direction for her work.

These images included objects discovered in charity shops, rescued from skips, inherited from family, or left over from previous engagement projects. Some held personal memories, while others were selected purely for their geometric character and material qualities.

Sam often explores contrast, combining materials such as rope, fabric, rubber and metal to create visual tension. She is interested in the balance between control and unpredictability, allowing materials to behave in unexpected ways.

She also enjoys creating compositions that viewers cannot immediately identify. “I like people to look at an object and not necessarily know what it is,” she says, aiming to encourage people to spend a longer time viewing the work.

Just as she used to enjoy interrupting everyday routines with unexpected artworks in public spaces, she now wants audiences to pause in front of her work and question what they are seeing.

Colour and light play equally important roles, providing her with a way of thinking through ideas and associations. The way the light interacts with the materials and objects becomes “part of the equation,” almost like a material in its own right.

Particular colours evoke memories and moods, creating chains of connections that emerge organically through the making process. She only begins to analyse the work after completing it, discovering unexpected associations and underlying meaning.

Her photographic works are very much viewed through the lens of a sculptor. Objects are assembled, moved, stacked, balanced and lit before being photographed, with arrangements existing briefly before being dismantled.

“I see my photography more as objects than flat images,” she explains. This is reinforced by the fact that many of her photographs are printed directly onto aluminium dibond, which highlights the lightest areas, enhancing its physical presence.

Although she considers her work to be abstract, the material relationships suggest a figurative quality and emotional depth. Materials are a language through which these relationships are expressed, leading her to describe the work as “a metaphor for human connection.”

Sam Haynes’ work is available to view and purchase at https://exhibtd.com/artists/sam-haynes.

Featured image: Sam Haynes, Side Slider, Photograph, 2026