INSPIRE: Artist Samala Ghosh’s world of colour makes sure Our Place is her place of happiness and fulfilment

There’s a studio-gallery nestled away on Strickland Street in Denmark sporting a welcoming hand-painted sign saying Our Place. A rack of pre-loved clothes sits outside the door with knick-knacks nearby on a small table, while through an entrance way stacked with colourful cards is a space which serves as workplace and happy place for artist Samala Ghosh. There are three people being busy when The Advertiser visits: Samala, her mum Andrea and Kate Campbell-Pope. Campbell-Pope is an art mentor, a brilliant creative in her own right. It is she who helps Samala, who lives with Down syndrome, turn her thoughts into pictures and then into sales. The pair were occupied folding a new delivery of cockatoo cards, so they were ready to join the frogs, flowers, birds, landscapes and geometrics on display in the entrance hall. The rest of the room was filled with arts and crafts, seemingly the work of several people but actually mostly the work of just one. Samala didn’t start painting until she was 16, but when her mother found her drawing and singing along, pencil in hand, she realised her daughter was contented. And from that initial hunch came certainty, as Samala started painting from her imagination and things started to take off. Her success is all her own, but the fact she has been able to realise her potential has had much to do with the organisation Disability In the Arts, Disadvantage in The Arts which has been at the forefront of disability arts in WA for 30 years. It was DADDA which provided her first mentors, Albany artists Karen Quain and Kaye Embleton, and a grant towards a studio at the Vancouver Arts Centre in Albany to help set Samala on her way. And once Samala and her mother moved to Denmark, she needed another space, so she worked out of the town’s revamped Butter Factory before shifting to Strickland Street six years ago. Although Our Place is most definitely Samala’s space, it was an exhibition at the Butter Factory called New York Dreaming which enabled her to take the trip of a lifetime — to New York, of course — after she sold every piece. Campbell-Pope’s time is funded by DADDA and she is clearly worth every cent. She brings an organised calm to the space, encouraging and prompting in equal measure. Samala, on the other hand, is as colourful as her paintings, her nails a vivid deep red, T-shirt a bright white with hoops underneath and her smile as broad as the grins sewn on to the rabbits which dangle from the rabbit tree by the window. It’s clear that colour is key to Samala’s art, for it dominates her landscapes and the animals that she loves. “I love being in Our Place and I love bold colours,” she said. It was Campbell-Pope who helped her transition from painting from her imagination to using photographs as a stimulus, and Samala now takes her own photos, using them to kick-start her various projects. A trip to the historic mining town of Leonora made a great impression and inspired her Leonora Series but she is also currently very much into painting frogs. “I like to do a series of works and do some research,” she said although she has also just started drawing the flowers she received for her 34th birthday. It is not just painting which keeps Samala busy, but also drawing, textiles, printmaking, sculpture and photography, examples of which can all be found in the studio. Mum’s influence around saving the environment means she upcycles used and found materials, recycling whatever she can, consciously saving waste from landfill. She has exhibited widely both in Perth and regionally and her work regularly finds its way interstate and overseas; it’s also in several Albany businesses through the Art Lease project and she is a member of the contemporary art group Mix Artists, based in Albany. Music is another one of her loves and she plays piano, guitar and drums. She is confident and sure of her place in Our Place. “I am an artist, a musician and a role model,” she said. “Having Down syndrome should not stop you living your dream.”