Sam Bloor | Futile Gestures
From Saturday 16 August 2025
To Sunday 26 October 2025
Futile Gestures is a new body of work by Walyalup-based visual artist Sam Bloor developed in response to famed conceptual artist John Baldessari’s Teaching a Plant the Alphabet. Exhibiting alongside Baldessari's work, Futile Gestures explores themes of communication, the impending ecological crisis, and urban sprawl through photography and installation.
Although distinctively individual, the three exhibitions — Futile Gestures, Teaching a Plant the Alphabet, and To The Letter — share common themes of language, signage, and meaning-making, creating a unique dialogue across contemporary and historical practices.
Sam Bloor
Sam Bloor is a visual artist from Perth, Western Australia. Bloor’s background as a traditional signwriter informs his use of text provocations and large scale public artworks, burring the line between his trade and artistic careers.
Bloor has exhibited in a number of group and solo shows both nationally and internationally including, Totem In Tribute (2016) in Edinburgh, UK, the Fremantle Print Award (2016/18), Rotterdam Photo Festival (2019), NL, and was commissioned to produce a major public work as part of the 2022 Perth Festival program.
In 2024, Bloor was recruited as a drawing technician on Archie Moore and Ellie Buttrose’s Kith and Kin for the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Bloor has won multiple awards and is represented in both private and public collections including the Art Gallery of WA.
Discover more about Sam Bloor
Image: Sam Bloor artist portrait. Photography by Jacob Steenson
Image: Sam Bloor, A futile gesture of devotion, 2025, digital billboard. Photography by Sam Bloor