Fine Art Gallery
Below you will find a catalog of my artwork, organized by year. This historical log demonstrates how my work evolves and changes over time. It's important to my artistic journey to be authentic and vulnerable, so you will find all types of work here, not just my best and curated pieces. I hope you enjoy this approach to sharing work; please imagine me warmly welcoming you on a tour of my studio!
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Artwork available for purchase will be posted soon.
Current Gallery -
2024
2024 was a year of growth and development, in more ways than one. I enrolled in the Milan Art Institute's year-long Mastery Program, which focuses on improving technique, skill, voice, and sellability of artwork. This program taught me incredible lessons that allowed my paintings to reach a new level of depth and vibrancy. My goal of participating in this online art school was to develop my artistic style and professionalize my paintings.
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In addition to growing my artistic abilities, I also was growing life. I became pregnant with my second son in January, and worked through a physically and mentally taxing pregnancy. I could not get into the studio as often as I would like, or have as much energy as I would ideally bring to the easel, but I continued to show up and create work in whatever way I could. This year taught me about merging resilience with self-care, which are not mutually exclusive ideas, rather, two efforts that must work together in difficult times.
Historical Galleries
2023
2023 brought new media and inspiration, exploration of ideas, and trial and error to my artwork. I started off the year offering online art classes independently through Samantha Dunne Studio, in addition to teaching art at the university. These classes challenged me to come up with new concepts and designs that would be engaging to render over Zoom, in a variety of media, while also navigating the logistics of running an online visual arts course. Many of the images you will see at the end of this this gallery were demo pieces created for these classes.
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In addition to the artwork created for these classes, I finished a 2 year long commission (the 3'x3' succulent painting), and a 30 hour detailed portrait of my parents home and landscape. Towards the end of the year, I began to feel constrained with the traditional formats of pre-fab canvases, and yearned to create work that was both organic in shape as well as material. Thats when my a new series emerged, tentatively called EcoArchi. Those are the first three images you will find in the gallery below. For this series, I used branches found in suburban yards, assembled them together, then stretched organic cotton canvas over them. Next, I digitally rendered an image that blended nature with architecture, that also fit the specific shape of that unique canvas. Finally, I rendered the design using natural earth paints, and finished them with an all natural, toxin-free varnish. My inspiration behind this series was to help others visualize how the world would look if nature took back our built environment, and be a voice of encouragement that embraces and demands the rapid and essentail transition to sustainable buildings.
2022
2022 was certainly interesting in both my personal and professional life. It marked the completion of my first full year of teaching Art and Interior Design at the university level, while simultaneously and unexpectedly getting pregnant with our first child. It was also our first year living in a new home in a new state (we had just moved from Florida to Nebraska). Needless to say, the year was emotionally, mentally, and physically intense. Despite the circumstances, I wanted to do my very best at continuing to expand my engagement with the fine arts, especially in the new community I was now a part of. So, I signed up to be an art vendor at my first festival, Hippie Fest, which took place when I was over 8 months pregnant. Much of the year was spent creating artwork to stock my festival tent, in themes, colors, and price-points that would appeal to Hippie Fest goers. You will find this gallery to be comprised of many smaller art pieces that embrace bright colors and earthy subject matter.
2021
2021 brought a year of commissions and giving art as gifts to my art studio. After completing a hodgepodge of commissions, stock paintings, and exploratory work in 2020, I wanted to refocus on developing artwork in styles and subject matter that others would enjoy, rather than discovering my own artistic voice. I was hoping this approach to art-making would give my studio practice some direction, and in a way, it temporarily did. 2021 also brought new connections and experiences in the fine arts community, with my first artist residency at Zero Empty Spaces collective arts studio in Boynton Beach, Florida. I developed many new ideas here and started a lot of pieces, but many did not get completed during this residency as it was cut short when we found out we would be moving from Florida to Nebraska later that year. In this gallery, you will find an assortment of art created for commissions and gifts, in more of controlled, neutral styles that resonate more with the mainstream buyer.
2020
2020, ahhh the year that changed the world. When the Covid pandemic hit, I was just a few months into working at a private art studio in Florida, when suddenly classes stopped. I taught a few classes virtually, but ultimately decided to spend that very strange time building my own art business, Samantha Dunne Studio. 2020 was by far my most productive of art making, creating over 60 original pieces. I explored everything from portraiture to detailed florals, acrylic to watercolor and ink. I created anything and everything that came to mind. This year gave me the luxury of time, and the support of friends and family, which allowed me to paint with abandon. I wasn't focused on cohesion, technique, or "finding myself" as an artist. Rather, I was swept away in the moment of productivity and the plethora of commissions and sales that my artwork was producing. The pandemic was devastating, and at the same time, it created space for small business and artists like myself to emerge.
2019
2019 was a pivotal year for me. It was the year I took a leap of faith and bet on myself. At the start of the year, we moved from Dallas to South Florida in chase of a dream and a new job, starting a new chapter working in Sustainability Consulting and living back by the ocean (where our hearts belong.) Only a few months into the year, I realized the job was not the right fit for me, and I made the very hard decision to quit, and start my own business. This first entrepreneurial adventure was sustainability focused -- the idea was to help homeowners understand their impact on the earth and advise on small easy changes that can make their lifestyles and homes more efficient and eco friendly.
Although the business didn't end up taking off, having this dedicated time for myself was critical to rediscovering my creative side, after a desert of a decade. I slowly began to make art again, starting first with commissions from friends, then some experimental "flow art" which was all the rage at that time. By the end of the year, I got a part-time job working for a private art studio, giving art lessons to people of all ages, from toddlers through to senior citizens. With a paintbrush in hand, I felt right back at home.
2010-'18
The span of time between 2010 and 2018 was relatively low productivity in art creation for me. Most of the work you will see in this gallery was completed from 2010-2014 when I was an undergraduate studying Art, Education, and Global Culture. It is comprised primary of school assignments, with only a few other other original pieces created after graduation. The time between 2014-2018 was dedicated to going to graduate school (studying Sustainable Building Design) and starting my professional career, which I moved away from the Fine Arts and into the Sustainability space. This refocus lead me to spend my free time pursing other passions outside of painting, and ultimately causing myself to fall into a creative dry spell.
2006-'09
2006-2009 were the years when I realized that my excitement for art was more than excitement -- it was my passion. The work you will find in this gallery was created during my high school years, primarily for school assignments. I explored with a variety of media, but felt most pulled towards acrylic paint, pen, and graphite. During my Senior year, I was enrolled in AP Studio Art, which was a college-credit course that asked me to develop a series and create my first portfolio. The theme of this series was exploring the visual expression of music styles, so many of these pieces depict instruments as the primary subject matter.
