Samantha Sutcliffe is an artist, film-maker and writer based in New York.  She is interested in the following topics: alienation, suburbia, formation of identity, the (d)evolution of sexuality, perversion, social ostracization and digital fragments of mass media. 

Her foundational influence is Gonzo Journalism, characterized by an emotional approach to story-telling where participation is key. In college she gravitated towards documentary work of photographer Peter Van Agtmael and director Laura Poitras, whose fearless approach to storytelling inspired her to create works with high levels of intensity that challenge conventions. 

She’s  been commissioned by musicians and fashion labels to direct absurd, advertly psychological, subversive and overtly sexual narratives that are pulled directly from her own fictional stories. 

In 2021 she started an art movement against censorship, paying homage to transgressive writers, musicians and political activist of earlier generations. Over a period of three years Samantha has programmed lectures, taught classes, curated exhibitions, produced art fairs and distributed films with a dedication to preserving transgression in this daunting socio-political landscape. 

Her work has been published in Truth in Photography, Gigantic Magazine, Dirty Magazine, American Vulgaria, Phile Magazine, Paper Journal, Musee Magazine and Atlantic.Rethink. 

Education
2019 International Center of Photography, New York, NY 
Post-Graduate in Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism 
2013 City College of New York, NY 
Bachelors of Arts in Studio Art, Minor in Art History 

Grants, Honors and Awards
2024 Emerging Exhibitors Grant, Jersey Art Book Fair
2022 Creatives Rebuild New York
2021 Lucie Foundation Notions of Home Prize
2021 Fotofilmic Partial Scholarship for Michael Famighetti Workshop
2021 The City Corps Grant
2021 The Hopper Prize Finalist
2018 International Center of Photography Director’s Cut Scholarship 

Select Publications
2024 The Girl Issue, American Vulgaria 
2024 ‘Broken Mirror’ Photo Essay and Interview, Truth in Photography 
2024 ‘Life in Plastic’, Dirty Magazine Issue 08
2024 Pretty Obscure Anthology, Far West Press
2024 ‘Rebel Girl’, Gigantic Magazine 
2023 Women Crush Wednesday, Musee Magazine
2023 ‘The Dollman’ No Agency Annual 
2022 ‘Broken Mirror’, Atlantic.Rethink 
2021 Fotofilmic JRNL 10 Curated by Paul Schiek 
2021 THNK1994 Museum Art Zine
2021 Interview, The Hopper Prize 
2021 ‘Broken Mirror’, Paper Journal 
2019 ‘Get to know Lexi Minoa’, Phile Magazine Issue 03 
2017 Super Special Volume 10, Vuu Collective 
2017 As of Late, Oranbeg Press

Short Films
2024 Leo, in collaboration with Ben Fama for The Poetry Project
2024 Mo Troper Svengali Live

Group Shows and Screenings
2024 Leo, Film Screening, The Poetry Project, New York, NY 
2023 Rockaway Art Week, Far Rockaway, NY 
2023 Death of the Subject, Public Works Administration, NYC
2020 The Vida Archive, The Royal Society of Art, Brooklyn NY
2019 My Suburban Sprawl, International Center of Photography, New York, NY
2019 971 Int’L, SF Projects, New York, NY
2014 Newspace Now!, Newspace Center for Photography, Portland, Oregon
2014 In One Place or Another, Aviary Gallery, Jamaica Plain, MA
2014 Across the Gutter, 110 Meserole, Brooklyn, NY
2014 Infocus Juried Exhibition of Self-Published Works, The Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona

Public Collections
The Phoenix Art Museum 


Instagram
Linkedin
Broken Mirror (2014 - Ongoing) 

Black and white silver gelatin darkroom prints, contact sheets, childhood drawings, interview transcripts and sound-recordings. 

Broken Mirror is a long form study on the complexites and contractions of human nature. The work, produced over the last decade, investigates the dark undercurrents of America’s culture and socio-political landscape. 



Dangerous, Hysterical and Perfect Pop Culture Fun (2023) 

Black and white silver gelatin print, 12 x 12 in. mirror frame, various tearsheets collected from ebay and scotch tape.

Dangerous, Hysterical and Perfect Pop Cultyre Fun is a critique on medias and how they profit off the creation and destruction of public figures. The work was installed at the Death of the Subject group exhibitiion at Public Works Administration in Times Square, New York City, alongside multi-media works by Jake Brush, e5piral, Johnny Scuotto and Joslyn Crocco. Death of the Subject explores the distrubing flow of media brainwashing and doxing culture, suggesting to break the cycle by pausing and becoming symbiotic with nature. 

In Boris Groys’ Into the Flow he explains that being offline is the act of contemplation that leaves no trace and therefore does not belong in the material world. The death of the subject means the incapacity of the subject to communicate and contribute their own message therefore becoming a secret. The media cycle (tabloid) continues to validate this behavior that has trickled down to all classes (non-celebrity) resulting in loss of job, housing, community and suicide. The death of one’s image is a blessing in disguise. Although painful, the rebirth creates an open minded existence, a freedom from the attachment of the image of the self.  



Phile Magazine Issue 03 (2019)
Get to know... Lexi Minoa (Quiz with a Cam Girl) 
Photographs By Samantha Sutcliffe 



Under the Shadows of... (2017 - 2019)

Under the Shadows of... is a multi layered account through photographs and interviews of a trans female sex worker who de-transitions after four years of being on hormones. The project, shot over the course of three years, is a testament to the universal need for connection and community against today’s deeply fractured societal backdrop.  

Under the Shadows of... was short listed for The Hopper Prize in 2021. Different iterations of this project have been published in Fotofilmic JRNL 10 guest edited by Paul Schiek (2021) and Phile Magazine Issue 03 (2020).  



Dirty Magazine Issue 08 (2024)
Life in Plastic: Conversation between Samantha Sutcliffe and writer Jack Skelley about his new book Myth Lab

"When I read Myth Lab and thought more about my own work – which is an investigation into the negative effects of economic and social ostracization practices like ‘cancellation’ – and how documenting the alienation of sexuality in my recently published photography series Broken Mirror has shown me how shame can result from perversion. Wayne Hoffman explains in Policing Public Sex that in the 80s the government turned pornography into safe sex education in an attempt to eradicate the culture of sex.  This suppression of perversion contributed to the sexual de-evolution. And sharing a pornographic experience with someone feels unattainable. One of the questions Myth Lab poses: Is autoerotica, the act of being turned on by oneself, the answer? Is this how sexuality will evolve? No gender constructs, no physical contact, lots of fucking on VR?"





2022 - 2023 No Agency Annual 
‘The Dollman’, text by Rachel Rabbit White, 
Photographs by Samantha Sutcliffe 

A first hand account told by Rachel Rabbit White (Porn Carnival) about a man and his most prized possession,  a life sized sex doll named Amanda Superstar. Photography and video, taken by Samantha Sutcliffe, documents the nitty gritty of a picture perfect inanimate object. The results are six glossy photo prints selected from over one hundred images.