David Sampethai

Work Bio CV Related exhibitions

David Sampethai works across the fields of drawing, printmaking, artist books, sculpture, tapestry, sound/music and writing, with painting always at the center of his practice. He loves painting the most because he believes it is the best way to say something you can’t exactly put your finger on. His approach to painting is intuitive and experimental, informed by his near-encyclopedic knowledge of the medium. He regularly switches back and forth between two painting gears: working fast on high volumes of smaller works, usually on paper, through which a lot of themes, ideas and characters first surface, and working slower, in a wider time frame, on large paintings, usually on canvas, where decision-making casts a heavier shadow through a layered process of addition, erasure and looking.

Sampethai’s subject matter is steeped in associative thinking and often tinged with dark humor and a sense of empathy, borne of a winding line of inquiry that engages with history and everyday life, contemporary politics, art and cinema history, music subcultures and counterculture, mythology and religion, literature, architecture and set design. Through a distinctly personal mode of storytelling, seamlessly moving through narration forms of different fields, he constructs an ever-expanding world populated by a recurring cast of human, animal and other characters. The architecture and landscapes these figures inhabit are often as psychologically charged as the figures themselves, operating both as a stage and active agent in the power dynamics and dreamlike scenarios that take place.

Sampethai studied Painting and Printmaking at the Glasgow School of Art (2012).

He has developed an ongoing exhibition history with Eleftheria Tseliou Gallery, beginning with Interzoned (2013) and continuing through solo and duo/group presentations including Two Johns (2015); Key to the Kuffs and The Library Show (2017); Ceramics (2018); Ill Winds (2019), The Landscape Show (2022), the two-part exhibition I Ain’t Dead, Just Trying to Hear the Sound of the Earth Spinning (2024) and most recently The Library Project in collaboration with Joy Herro in Alcova Milan and Salon (2025) in collaboration with Galerie Max Hetzler. Other notable group shows include The Collective Purr (2024) curated by Nadja Argyropoulou and institutional shows We, The Monster (2024) with Malvina Panagiotidi at MOMus – Experimental Centre for the Arts, curated by Orestis Andreadakis and In A Bright Green Field (2025) organized by DESTE Foundation and the New Museum, presented at Benaki Museum and curated by Gary Carrion-Murayari.

Early in his career he received the Stevenston Painter of Merit Award at the RSA New Contemporaries (2013). In 2020, he was invited to be a resident artist at the Masereel (at the time Frans Masereel Centrum) in Belgium. He is also the founder of Hideout Editions, an independent publishing house dedicated to artist books.

B. 1989 Athens, Greece

EDUCATION

2009-2012 Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, UK

Painting & Printmaking Bachelor Honors

2008-2009 Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow UK

Briefly studied architecture

SOLO/DUO EXHIBITIONS

2024

We, The Monster duo show with Malvina Panagiotidi curated by Orestis Andreadakis for the 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival, MOMus Experimental Centre for the Arts, Thessaloniki, Greece

I Ain’t Dead, Just Trying to Hear The Sound of The Earth Spinning Part II, hosted by Eleftheria Tseliou at a former nightclub in Piraeus, Athens, Greece

I Ain’t Dead, Just Trying to Hear The Sound of The Earth Spinning Part I, Eleftheria Tseliou Gallery, Athens, Greece

2019-2020

ILL WINDS solo show, Eleftheria Tseliou Gallery, Athens, Greece

2017

Key to the Kuffs solo show, Eleftheria Tseliou Gallery, Athens, Greece

2015

Two Johns duo show with Antonakis Christodoulou including a soundtrack/audioguide in collaboration with musicians Irene Lyssari and Benjha (Other People), Eleftheria Tseliou Gallery, Athens, Greece

2013-2014

Interzoned solo show including a soundtrack/audioguide in collaboration with electronic music producer Benjha (Other People), Eleftheria Tseliou Gallery, Athens, Greece

GROUP SHOWS

2025

Salon, Eleftheria Tseliou Gallery and Galerie Max Hetzler, TOSITSA 3, Athens, Greece (16 September – 7 November)

In A Bright Green Field, organized by DESTE Foundation and the New Museum, curated by Gary Carrion-Murayari, Kraus Family Senior Curator at the New Museum, Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece

The Library Project, curated by Eleftheria Tseliou and scenography by Joy Herro, ALCOVA Milan at Villa Borsani, Milan, Italy

2024

The Collective Purr, curated by Nadja Argyropoulou, Nobel Building, Athens, Greece

Odyssey curated by Marilena Koutsoukou, Archaeological Museum of Piraeus, Athens, Greece

2023

Encore: New Greek Painting curated by Christoforos Marinos, Theophilos Tramboulis and Eleni Koukou, Municipal Gallery of Athens, Athens, Greece

2022

The Landscape Show, Eleftheria Tseliou Gallery, Athens, Greece

2019

The Still Life Show, Eleftheria Tseliou Gallery, Athens

Befriending Hyperobjects, Navel, Los Angeles, USA

Ceramics, Eleftheria Tseliou Gallery, Athens, Greece

Never Below Zero, Snehta Residency, Athens, Greece

2017

The Library Show, Eleftheria Tseliou Gallery, Athens, Greece

Multiples, Elefteria Tseliou Gallery, Athens, Greece

2015

Kenophobia, CAN Gallery, Athens, Greece

2014

Group Show, Eleftheria Tseliou Gallery, Athens, Greece

2013-2014

RSA Open 2013, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, UK

2013

Royal Scottish Academy New Contemporaries 2013, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, UK

Society of Scottish Artists Open Annual Exhibition 2013, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, UK

ART FAIRS

2025