Artist Sam Modder’s new exhibition, “Source of All Hair, Wearer of All Socks,” is now at Creative Pinellas (12211 Walsingham Rd).
Sam Modder is a globe-spanning creative force rooted in Nigeria and Sri Lanka. She was raised in Sri Lanka and is now based in the Tampa Bay area, where her imagination flows as freely as her ink. A visual artist, educator, and cultural innovator, Modder is known for creating immersive, large-scale works that blend personal mythology, social critique, and a deep reverence for Black womanhood.
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Her academic path is as multidimensional as her art. After earning a BA in Studio Art and Engineering from Dartmouth College in 2017, she received an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis in 2022. Today, she’s an Assistant Professor of Art and Design at the University of Tampa, shaping not only new worlds through her own work, but also nurturing the next generation of visual storytellers.
Sam Modder’s work has graced galleries across America
Modder’s creative footprint stretches across the country. Her recent exhibitions have graced the halls of the Sarasota Art Museum, the African American Museum of Dallas, Catskills Art Space in New York, and the Morris Museum in New Jersey. During Miami Beach’s No Vacancy 2023, she transformed the Catalina Hotel with seven sprawling murals, turning its walls into portals of beauty, fantasy, and bold resistance.
But one of the most captivating journeys into her work can be experienced right here in the Tampa Bay area.
Currently on view at The Gallery at Creative Pinellas, Source of All Hair, Wearer of All Socks is a revelation. The exhibition, extended through April 27, immerses viewers in mural-sized ballpoint pen drawings of fantastical realms shaped by towering Black female figures. These works, digitally manipulated and then enlarged to a massive scale, create environments that feel both mythic and deeply personal.
“It’s a world where childhood wonder meets cultural memory,” Modder has said of the show—where her characters don’t just occupy space, they own it. Each figure is heroic, defiant, and graceful, navigating landscapes that are equal parts dreamscape and cultural battlefield.
Black hair reimagined as a living force
At the heart of it all is Black hair, reimagined as a living force: braided, coiled, floating, growing with strength and resistance. In Modder’s universe, hair becomes a kind of mythological thread, winding through generations and symbolizing both softness and rebellion.
“These speculative worlds decenter broken realities,” the exhibition text notes, “and reimagine and critique oppressive structures.” In the process, Modder dares us to see what else might be possible.
More than anything, Modder’s work is about the story. Whether in a Miami hotel, a Dallas Museum, or a Largo gallery, she creates space for narratives that have been overlooked or underestimated. She brings Black women’s stories to the foreground: loud, soft, joyful, furious, and complicated.
Exhibition Details
Source of All Hair, Wearer of All Socks
Now extended through April 27, 2025
The Gallery at Creative Pinellas
12211 Walsingham Rd, Largo, FL 33778
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