Sam’s paintings are a response to being in the landscape: they are shaped by the experience of being in a certain place at a certain time and the memory of this.

These experiences are the basis for his involvement with the paint, and from then on, his interaction with the paint takes over. The process allows him to show in painting, something of the place he is in or has been in, whether it’s the landscape of Shropshire, Cumbria or more recently, the urban environment of Glasgow and the landscapes of the West Coast.

‘There is a poetic sparseness to Cartman’s paintings of wide open spaces, in the skies or the sculpted buildings which look as if they have been there for all time. (Jan Patience, The Glasgow Herald)