Kevin Sampson: Fruit of the Poison Tree

Newark artist Kevin Sampson, a retired police officer, is largely self-taught when it comes to art. His sculptures are created from discarded materials and found objects, such as trash and chicken bones. The title of his work is “a cop’s saying, one of the first things a police officer is taught at the academy. It means that if an arrest is bad, the fruit of the arrest is bad,” says Sampson. Sampson, however, believes that “good art is made by purification,” even if the raw materials are discards from the trash heap. “Although outwardly the source appears to be bad, art changes all that. It recycles it, returns its spirit.”