Local painter shows Dundalk’s beauty in gallery

First published Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024 in the Dundalk Eagle.

Sam Iaconi used be a surrealist painter, painting a mixture of reality and fantasy, like a painting of a child, food and blood dripping down from her lip and nose, holding a big spoon with three eyeballs above a silver bowl, perhaps made for scoops of ice cream, with yet more eyeballs at a diner.

The blue table the girl is eating off of has two books stacked on top of it labeled “childcraft,” meant to represent teaching the future. A Seagrams bottle sits atop the books, filled with discarded cigarette butts, representing the pressure of generations past and the destruction they leave behind.

Nowadays, she paints in a realistic style, painting things that are really there. Her latest gallery, entitled “Diners, drive-ins and dives” was on display Thursday for its opening night at the Forge, showing some of Dundalk’s mainstays.

“Dundalk is not a place that’s usually painted,” she said. “So painting these local treasures shines them in a more beautiful light than people may expect.”

In other words, she paints from life, in plein air style. By day, she repairs appliances — and hasn’t considered painting them. By night, or whenever she gets an idea, she paints. The ideas build up in her mind.

“It haunts me,” she said. “I want to make it. I want to see it. I want to hold it.”

“I want other people to see it to see it the way that I saw it.”

And not just places or abstract things, either. She paints weddings and houses, people portraits and pet portraits.

“Anything you can think of, I can paint,” she said with a laugh.

She’s been painting for at least 15 years, and professionally — making sure that the materials she uses can last a long time, handling her materials and pieces like professional work — for eight.

“The idea of my work being here in 100 years,” she said, “is something that I really look forward to.”