About
Sam King has exhibited at galleries, artist-run spaces, and universities across the country, and his work is held in a number of public and private collections. He performs and releases improvisational, microtonal guitar music under the name Untight, and is a member of the post-punk two-piece Big Drama. He co-founded and co-ran Lalaland, a DIY community art and music space in Fayetteville, AR (2011-19), co-edited the blog MW Capacity (2007-17), and has been a resident artist at Vermont Studio Center, the Hambidge Center, and Ox-Bow School of Art, as well as an affiliated fellow of the American Academy in Rome. He resides in Fayetteville, AR, where serves as an Associate Director of the University of Arkansas School of Art.
Recent exhibitions
2025
Controlled Demo, The Creamery, Rogers, AR
Turned and Turning Still, The Painting Center, New York
Entheos, Local Color, Fayetteville
2024
The Contemporaries, Light Art + Design Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC
Our Art, Our Region, Our Time, Joy Pratt Markham Gallery, Walton Arts Center, Fayetteville, AR
Useful Friction, Ellis Hall, Hendrix College (solo)
Future in the Making, Historic Arkansas Museum, Little Rock
2023
Outliers, 211 South, Bentonville (solo)
Blue: a color story, MIXD, Rogers, AR
115 Miles East, M. A. Doran, Tulsa
2022
Time Out, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati (solo)
Merging Spaces, MIXD
Selections from the Permanent Collection, Fort Smith Regional Art Museum
2021
Thousands of Little Folds, Forsberg Gallery, Lower Columbia College, WA (solo)
2020
Press Record on this Painting, The Little House Gallery, Memphis, TN
Unfinished/Accidents, Manifest Gallery, Cincinatti, OH
Ensemble: Together Again, The Painting Center, NYC
Tapped, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati
2019
Neither Here Nor There, Visual & Performing Arts Center Gallery, Western Connecticut State University, CT
The Unusuals, The Painting Center, New York
Sentinels (II): Subvert (The Temperature, Part 7), curated by Ian Breidenbach and Terez Iacovino, Snag Gallery, Seattle
Print + Systems + Sound, Unrequited Leisure, Nashville
Like Mercury in the Wind, Oneoneone Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC
Groundhog Days, Center for Art and Education, Van Buren, AR (solo)
Tapped, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH
2018
Neither Here Nor There, Wilma Daniels Gallery, Wilmington, NC
University of Arkansas Faculty Exhibition, Meadows Gallery, University of Texas at Tyler, TX
Abstract ARt, Batesville Area Arts Council, Batesville, AR
2017
Griffonage, Gatewood Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro (solo)
(Un)tacit, The Provincial, Kaleva, MI / Diane Endres Ballweg Gallery, Madison, WI
Abstract ARt, Rosemary Gossett Adams Gallery, Arkadelphia, AR
North of South, DRAWL Southern Contemporary Art, Little Rock, AR
Musical releases as Untight
2025
Pass Through (Creamery Version) / Willed, lathe cut, self-released
2024
Fair, cassette/digital, self-released
2021
States, cassette, self-released (digital release 2023)
2020
Reverse Forecast, cassette/digital, Drawing Room Records #0017
Untight, cassette/digital, Tape Dad #043
Curation
Shelters, Monuments: Whiting Tennis & Sarah Norsworthy, The Provincial, MI, 2019
Brett Baker, Bottle Rocket Gallery, Fayetteville, AR, 2016
One Nite Standard series, Lalaland, Fayetteville, 2015-2018
Tenses of Landscape, Fine Arts Center Gallery, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 2012
Residencies
2024 American Academy in Rome
2023 Vermont Studio Center
2020 Hambidge Center for the Arts
2007 Ox-Bow School of Art
Education
MFA, Indiana University, 2005
BFA, University of Tulsa, 2003