Sam Toft

According to Sam, she did not always want to be an artist. Her earliest ambition was to work in a post office, or to join a circus which had a nice elephant or two.

In her time she’s amassed an impressive CV and claims experience as a Fire Extinguisher Sales Person, a Death Grants Advisor, a Wedgwood Rooms Worker, an Accountant’s Assistant, a Silver Service Waitress, a Catering Manager, and a Yoga Teacher. Thankfully, she ended up becoming the artist we know and love!

Using mixed media, pencil, oil pastels, coloured inks and her own idiomatic techniques, Sam depicts a seaside world of faded ice-cream colours where the breeze is always blowing and life is utterly delicious.

Her works centres around her characters, The Mustards – Ernest Hemmingway Mustard lives on the Brighton Hove border in a not-so-damp basement flat, with his dear lady wife Violet and Doris their grumpy and rather portly Jack Russel Terrier. Sam Toft has been their official picture maker and story teller for over 20 years. These characters are her imaginary friends, always there inside her head, helping make sense of a world that can often seem stranger than fiction.