Sampa is a self-taught visual artist based in Johannesburg, South Africa, born in Ontario Canada, with Zambian heritage. Working in oil paint, hand embroidery, and pen on linen canvas and across fabrics. She came to art later in life- a return rather than a beginning, shaped by a full and unconventional personal history.

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Her practice sits at the intersection of life, loss and love, rooted in African culture and indigenous references. Drawing on photographic references to still, intimate human moments, her work explores the delicate balance between life and death, often painting those no longer present. Often, each image is linked to a story of this nature, or a quiet moment that holds its own intimacy. All figures are rendered with masked or abstracted faces, withholding identity so the viewer completes the narrative themselves.

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Sampa's signature canvas technique layers oil paint for colour and balance, hand embroidery for texture, and pen work for soft realism. The fabric pieces take months to complete, as the embroidery shifts and evolves with each stitch - a process that resists reproduction since the abstraction itself is inseparable from the meaning.

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Her work has been shown at Roco Gallery (Rochester NY, 2021), Art Sur Papier (Montreal, 2022), and in a salon presentation with Path Nomad (Johannesburg, 2025).  Sampa began working seriously in art in 2021, shortly after her father's death, while temporarily based in Montreal, before returning to Johannesburg in late 2023, where she has lived and developed her practice since.  Her work moves between mortality, memory, love, identity and self, tracing the delicate connection  between this world and the next.

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