Knobs and Bobs is a solo exhibition featuring three large-scale sculptures and a series of corresponding prints. This body of work explores the uncanny—the familiar made strange—through forms that are both grotesque and playful, erotic and abject. Drawing from childhood imagery and bodily forms, it constructs a surreal, unsettling playground that invites both fascination and discomfort. 

The bubble-gum pink sculptures suggest both malleability and exposure. They beckon touch but resist interaction, echoing childhood curiosity twisted into ambiguous adult desire. Inspired in part by the anthropomorphic strangeness of cypress knees, these fleshy, warped forms reach out as empathic limbs, striving for connection. 

The accompanying prints serve as quiet precursors to the sculptures, capturing the initial intimacy of these uncanny bodies as they take shape. They exist in a slippery space before definition. Together, the prints and sculptures create a tension between scale and subtlety, presence and absence. These works prompt viewers to become aware of their own physicality, to feel their bodies in proximity to the forms, and to question what it means to recognize oneself in something strange. 

Samantha Neu is a Texas State alumna and recent MFA graduate of Washington University in St. Louis. She currently teaches at St. Charles Community College in Missouri. Neu has been a member of MASS Gallery, a docent at the Blanton Museum, and has also worked at The Contemporary Austin.