IN-STUDIO: SAMANTHA ROSENWALD

Samantha Rosenwald’s colored pencil drawings seduce viewers with their vibrant, playful surfaces before revealing something more unsettling beneath. The LA-based artist constructs her compositions through obsessive mark-making—a deliberately laborious process that mirrors the performative energy she investigates. Where a brushstroke might glide, Rosenwald scribbles, building up layers with an almost compulsive intensity that becomes part of the work’s meaning. Her subjects exist in a state of emotional ambiguity, caught between delight and dread, where the same gesture might signal either ecstasy or panic. This tension reflects Rosenwald’s broader interest in how we perform happiness, how we labor to appear effortless, and how closely our most joyful moments orbit our deepest fears. The result is work that feels simultaneously nostalgic and disquieting—familiar yet strange, inviting yet uneasy.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​