WELCOME!
I’m glad you’re here.
I'm Sam Rashba, a Los Angeles-based artist and film set designer. My artwork explores the relationship between landscape, memory, and belonging, with a particular interest in the quiet spaces where the natural and built worlds meet.
I make paintings that draw attention to the small, ephemeral moments of ordinary beauty that we might otherwise overlook unless we stop and take the time to absorb them.
About the Artist
A Life Between Places
Having moved frequently throughout my life, and carrying a complicated inheritance of place as a fourth-generation American, I often feel suspended between locations: the environments of my childhood, the unfamiliar places tied to my family’s deeper history, and the home I’ve built today.
That feeling has shaped the way I look at landscape. A place can be both immediate and layered with memory. It can remind us where we have been, where we come from, and where we feel we belong.
Painting has become a way for me to engage directly with that experience. By observing a place closely, I am not simply documenting it. I am trying to understand what makes it feel familiar, significant, or quietly moving.
Where the Built Meets the Natural
I am often drawn to places where architecture and nature overlap: a railing disappearing into trees, a building partially obscured by vegetation, shadows crossing a path, or a structure sitting quietly within a larger landscape.
My work as a film set designer has made me especially attentive to constructed space. I am interested in how architecture, framing, light, scale, and atmosphere can change the way we experience a place.
That same sensitivity follows me into my paintings. I’m drawn to environments that feel lived in rather than untouched, where traces of human presence exist alongside the natural world.
In an increasingly digital life, these physical spaces feel important to me. They ask us to look closely, pay attention, and be present somewhere real.
Between Control And Chance
My paintings begin with careful observation. I want the underlying structure of a place to feel convincing, almost photographic. But I don't want everything to remain perfectly controlled. My chosen mediums allow me to move in both directions, blending precisely defined forms with spontaneous textural effects.
That tension is important to me. Memory doesn't preserve a place perfectly. Some details remain sharp while others become fragmented or altered. In a world increasingly saturated with digital noise and documentation, we can have a clinical record of almost every experience while losing touch with how it felt to be there. I want my artwork to capture the emotions that become attached to a place, inviting viewers to slow down and spend deep time with the details I've observed.