The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that state which makes art inevitable.

Robert Henri

The artist

I am Samantha Lea, a 22-year-old spray paint artist born and raised in Melbourne, Australia.

My journey with spray paint began four years ago with an old op-shop canvas and a couple of cans of spray paint. From the beginning, I was drawn to the things we struggle to talk about: the emotions we bury, the thoughts we can’t explain, and the parts of ourselves we’re afraid to confront.

I believe art doesn’t need to provide answers. Sometimes, its purpose is simply to make you feel something you don’t have words for.

My work gives a physical form to the thoughts that never make it into conversation, the emotions we struggle to articulate, and the experiences we often assume we’re alone in feeling. I want people to recognise a part of themselves in my paintings and leave feeling seen, understood, or a little less alone.

I believe art is not a luxury, but a fundamental part of being human. My mission is to create work that feels accessible, honest, and human; art that doesn’t require any knowledge of art to connect with it.

Ultimately, I hope my work reminds people that their experiences are worth expressing, their feelings deserve space, and creativity belongs to all of us.

My INfluences

I’ve never been influenced by art as much as I’ve been influenced by the people behind it and what it is that they were trying to say. Their words, their stories, their obsession, and the way they saw the world.

I think everything we absorb eventually finds its way into what we create. A lyric that stays with you. A quote you read years ago. A painting that changes the way you look at something. A person who makes you question what you thought you knew.

My influences are endless. Musicians like Jeff Buckley and Bon Iver. Writers like Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath and Fyodor Dostoevsky. Artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Banksy, Vincent Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso.

But perhaps my great influences are the artists I’ll never get to see.

The woman whose work was never given the opportunity to exist publicly. Women who were denied artistic education, discouraged from creating, excluded from institutions, or simply never given the credit they deserved.

Their absence is its own kind of influence. It reminds me that creating is not only about making something beautiful, its about making something that cannot be ignored.