Sam Chappell an acrylic painter raised in New England and recently (Summer 2023) settled in Portland, Maine. Having spent her life shuttling up and down the East Coast, Sam has a soft spot for both coastal scenes and the views and hiking paths further inland. From an early age, she had a love of art and design - but for many years was on the viewer-side, graduating from college with a Bachelor’s in Art History. It hadn’t even occurred to her that she would ever be a maker of art herself, until 2020 came around, and she found herself in need of a creative outlet- which quickly snowballed into a daily painting practice. Now, that daily practice is one of Sam’s greatest sources of fulfillment, and she can’t imagine living without it. Artist StatementHow do you show how a place feels? Alive. A bit magical. Calming. Restless. To me, the act of being in nature is inseparable from feeling. Every landscape has its own personality, which in turn can spark a different series of emotions. I rely on a play of colors and expressive brushstrokes in an attempt to relate the whole experience of a landscape, in the hopes that the viewer can build their own relationship and emotional attachment to it. My paintings are love letters to my favorite places, records of where I’ve been, and places I dream of going. But more importantly, what are they to you?