St. Paul’s Methodist Church

Parlor Room

Program: Senior Artist Programs Manager and Artist Sam McCoy of the Thomasville Center for the Arts

Sam McCoy was born and raised in Orlando, Florida in the 90s. She is a contemporary painter who focuses on the boundaries between natural and hyperreal landscapes of the South. She pulls her inspirations from a place where spectacles and roadside attractions dominate America's tourism capital. Between eco-tourism destinations and constructed gardens, McCoy explores the contradictions of her experiences in these places. By pulling back the metaphorical curtain on a carefully crafted image of Florida and other southern states, McCoy’s ideas of disenchantment and re-enchantment are enacted in each painting. The viewer can still find meaning in the shadier discordant corners of the area.

McCoy received her BFA from the University of Central Florida and her MFA from Florida State University. She has taught design, drawing, and painting at Florida State University, and several workshops in Florida and Georgia. Currently she’s the Senior Artist Programs Manager at Thomasville Center for the Arts and continues to work in her home studio in Tallahassee frequenting picturesque springs and roadside citrus stands.