Sam Kaprielov was born in Ventspils on the West Coast of Latvia; he attended art college in Leningrad before returning to Riga. Many a nineteenth century artist started their career as a painter of theatrical scenery; Sam Kaprielov started his as a billboard painter. He moved to Venice in 1992 and arrived in London via a two-year spell in Avignon in 1998.

Sam Kaprielov does not talk about his work, but a love of architecture and study of Kafka are two elements of his ever-changing dreamscape. Viewing a series of his images instils a sense of half-remembered scenes from a haunting silent movie.