About Soteris Sam Roussi
Soteris Sam Roussi was raised in Niagara Falls. He earned a BFA in painting from SUNY Buffalo ('67) and MFA in painting from Ohio University ('69). He was a professor of art at Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA and Westfield State University in Massachusetts. Mid-career, Sam’s work was informed by hobo iconography, sparking a series of paintings that moved his approach firmly into a unique style of abstraction that carries through to his present work. He continues to develop a vocabulary of marks, playing with rich form and symbolic references that act as competitors on the painting’s surface as if participants in contentious visual debates. His most recent work harkens back to this original inspiration. Sam has exhibited extensively throughout the East Coast, receiving numerous awards including a Fellowship for Drawing from the Massachusetts Endowment for the Arts and Humanities (1977), an invitational exhibit at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art, Seven Artists in Georgia (1979) and The Face of the South for Southern Artists, Palazzo Venezia, Rome, Italy (1984). Most recently, he was featured in a solo exhibit, Entanglements, at the Firehouse Center for the Arts in Newburyport, MA (2017). His work is in the permanent collections of the DeCordova Museum (Lincoln, MA), Pepsi-Cola (Atlanta, GA), Coca-Cola Corp. (Atlanta, GA) to name a few. In recent years, Sam has been featured in a solo exhibit at the Firehouse Center for the Arts, Newburyport, MA and received recognition online including: "Infinite Possibilities of Uncertainty," Gallery 118.com; Circle Art Foundation, Artist of the Year Competition, Honorable Mention: High Aesthetic, Technical and Creative Standard, Gallery G25N, Juried International Online Painting Competition, Sedona Art Prize, Juried International Online Painting Competition “Abstract.” He has also been featured in print: Winter issue, Circle Quarterly Art Review (2018), ArtAscent:Art & Literature Journal, Silver Artist, (2017).
Sam currently resides in Western Massachusetts.
2017
Strong Man's Hoard"
2012
"Good Ship Lollipop"
2005
"Hooked in a Hurry"
2000
"Running Fence #3"