Samantha Gardiner
Mixed Media Artist
Samantha Gardiner is a Macedon Ranges mixed media artist whose work explores texture, layering, and the beauty of imperfection through expressive, tactile surfaces. Using materials such as ash, plaster, wax, collage, and handmade charcoal, she creates richly layered works that balance intuition, process, and emotion. Inspired by nature and place, her practice transforms the worn and overlooked into poetic reflections of lived experience.
Samantha Gardiner is a Macedon Ranges based mixed media artist whose practice celebrates texture, layering, and the quiet stories held within materials. Her work embraces imperfection as a point of beauty, revealing process, repair, and raw edges as integral elements rather than flaws. Through this approach, Samantha creates works that feel lived in and deeply tactile, inviting viewers to connect with the history embedded within each surface.
Working intuitively with mixed media, Samantha builds and distresses her compositions through the repeated addition and removal of materials. Ash, paint, plaster, wax, collage, and her own handmade charcoal, crafted from her own orchard prunings, are layered to create richly textured surfaces. These materials form a painterly understory that gives depth and movement to her work, allowing line, gesture, and mark-making to emerge organically across both abstract and representational pieces.
Her process reflects a deep sensitivity to place and experience, transforming what is worn, overlooked, or discarded into something poetic and expressive. The physicality of her materials mirrors the rhythms of nature, echoing cycles of growth, decay, and renewal. Each work carries a sense of quiet energy, shaped by intuition and an ongoing dialogue between control and chance.
Samantha lives and works in the Macedon Ranges, on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country in Victoria, where the surrounding landscape plays a central role in her creative practice. Immersed in nature, she draws inspiration from daily observation, allowing environment and emotion to inform her work. Her art becomes both a response to place and a personal reflection, an exploration of texture, movement, and the beauty found in imperfection.
Mixed Media
Workshop
In this hands-on mixed media workshop with artist Samantha Gardiner, you will explore layering, intuition, and the beauty of visible process.
You will experiment with texture, collage, and mark-making while learning to let go of perfection and trust creative instinct. The session offers a supportive space to reconnect with process, leaving attendees with a finished artwork and renewed confidence in their practice.
All the Details:
$300 per person
$295 pp when you book two or more places
5 hour Workshop
10 Students per Class
Take Home Your Own Artwork All Materials Included
Through collage, mark-making, paint, and tactile techniques, participants will explore ways of building and breaking down surfaces. You’ll learn when to add, when to remove, and—just as importantly—when to pause. The workshop gently challenges ingrained ideas about how art “should” look, encouraging risk-taking and helping participants shed habits of overthinking or perfectionism.
Ideal for artists at any stage, this workshop suits those craving a freer, more authentic creative approach, those drawn to texture and layered materials, or anyone feeling creatively stuck. By the end of the session, participants will leave with a resolved mixed-media artwork, renewed confidence in their creative voice, and practical techniques they can return to in their own practice. All materials are provided, and the workshop is suitable for beginners through to experienced artists.
Spend five hours with Macedon Ranges artist Samantha Gardiner, who will guide you through an exploratory mixed media workshop focused on layering, disruption, and discovery. Rather than concealing marks or mistakes, this workshop encourages a visible history of a work to remain present, celebrating the story held within each layer. Participants will be invited to slow down, observe, and engage with the evolving surface as a conversation rather than a fixed plan.
This workshop is not about achieving a polished or perfect result. Instead, it centres on trusting intuition, embracing texture, and allowing the artwork to emerge organically through process. Samantha will guide participants in letting go of expectations and control, creating space for experimentation, play, and unexpected outcomes. The emphasis is on responding to what appears on the page, rather than forcing an outcome from the outset.
Those Details Again:
$300 per person
$295 pp when you book two or more places
5 hour Workshop
10 Students per Class
Take Home Your Own Artwork
All Materials Included
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“On arrival, I received such a warm welcome. The class was well organised, the instructions clear and the facilities had everything we needed. I loved being part of the workshop - thank you.”
- Kathy Westfold
As Featured On
Accessibility
Sam is able to adapt the workshop for physical limitations and most areas of the venue is wheelchair/4ww accessible. Sam has completed training and has experience working with students with neurodiversity and is adept at making her sessions suitable for everyone. There is a large toilet but not a disability toilet on-site. Please email to ensure adequate accessibility measures are in place to make your day as fun and stress free as possible if you have specific access requirements.
Requests for additional non-participating adults, carers/support workers, to attend workshops will be allowed dependent on space. Please contact venue prior to booking to confirm there is not already additional people assisting with other students in your preferred date.
Terms & Conditions
Students must be over the age of 16+ and accompanied by a paying adult if under 18. There are no refunds on the purchase of tickets. Students may request two date transfers to a available dates, if made more than 7 days prior to class.