The Hole is pleased to present Sam’s, a solo exhibition by Samantha Rosenwald. For this special thematic exhibition, Rosenwald transforms the humble pinball dive bar into a colored-pencil-on-canvas fantasia—an adult playground of noise, indulgence, and, most crucially, loneliness.

Though the bar is full, no one is really there. Patrons are faceless and fragmented, reduced by compositional amputation to body parts or accessories. In Four of Cups, despite a seven-foot-wide canvas, we only see bodies from neck to elbow. In Bottoms Up, it’s mostly just legs and floor: the only eye contact in the entire show comes from a dog and some googly eyes stuck to a napkin holder. Stripped of identity, the characters become defined by brands and visual cues—a girl’s Ganni shoes, an Online Ceramics tee—material signs of shallow cultural meaning.

Six works are modeled on vintage pinball machine headboards—overlooked art forms that Rosenwald reimagines as autobiographical games. These canvases remix retro aesthetics into hyper-personal, anxious vignettes. Fun House Mirror Stage becomes a circus of body dysmorphia; Lock Down Rage Cage confronts an ex during covid; Shy Spy Leg-O-Vision gamifies social anxiety. With each piece, Rosenwald builds a psychological funhouse, a self-portrait by way of pinball cabinet.

The show is deeply immersive and eerily cohesive. Though inspired by a real L.A. bar, Sam’s feels wholly invented. Custom pint glasses, printed coasters, even a toilet paper holder covered in graffiti—all reinforce this strange parallel world. Paintings reference each other, Easter eggs abound, and the whole exhibition glows under a neon-lit umbrella. Titles and compositions often emerge from that glow, then accumulate meaning as Rosenwald obsessively renders every detail.

Though it appears playful, Rosenwald’s chosen medium—colored pencil—is anything but easy. “There’s a performative element to it,” she says. “Each mark is visible. You can see the exhausting perfectionism in every stroke.” What looks like digital polish from afar reveals, up close, an almost manic density of hand-drawn texture. The inadequacy of the medium becomes part of the meaning: reaching for greatness using something fragile, childlike, and inherently limited.

Loneliness—declared a public health crisis in the U.S. in 2023—haunts the show. Dive bars, typically built for revelry, become cruelly ironic when you’re alone: pretzels, hot dogs, cocaine and cigarettes appear as props in a disorienting, joyless theater of dissociation. These vices, meant to bring pleasure, instead seem to underscore a failure to connect.

“We all seek joy, connection, and freedom,” Rosenwald writes. “But sometimes we realize we’re more alone than we thought. The neon flickers off, the ‘open’ sign flips to ‘closed,’ and the buzz becomes a hangover. These moments of public joy—seen through beer-colored glasses—turn out to be fleeting and shallow.”

Samantha Rosenwald (b. 1994, Los Angeles) lives and works in LA. She received her BA in Art History from Vassar College and her MFA from California College of the Arts. She has exhibited internationally, with solo shows at Stems Gallery (Brussels), Sebastian Gladstone (Los Angeles) and Arsenal Contemporary (New York). Previous group shows at The Hole include Nature Morte and Storage Wars. Her work has been featured in New American Paintings, Art of Choice, and Franchise Magazine.