Sam Gleeson is a bladesmith based on the west coast of Ireland. Having lived and worked across the globe, his work explores humanity’s relationship with natural resources, food culture, and the creative reuse of waste.

Gleeson’s primary medium is the knife—an object that represents the intersection of utility, tradition, and beauty.

As an artist, maker and chef he has spent the last 35 years developing a working and living belief in seasonal produce, sustainable material use and circular living by re-imagining waste from the seashore, skips, industrial salvage and even hosting high dining experiences using ingredients destined for landfill.

Using advanced forging, welding, and joinery techniques, Gleeson crafts tools that are both highly functional and sculpturally expressive. Each piece tells a story—of transformation, of heritage, and of connection to the material world.

High carbon steels are forge-welded with historical salvage. Handles are hewn from timbers of long-forgotten orchards, limbs of storm damaged trees from Irish Estate Houses, or relics of buried forests found in the boglands.

Selling around the world to both professional chefs and home cooks alike, his work is also in the 21st Century Craft Archive permanent collection of the National Museum of Ireland.

Sam Gleeson is an applied artist and bladesmith who specializes in culinary knives as contemporary tools designed for both professional kitchens and home cooking.

His practice is shaped by a deep respect for traditional craftsmanship, natural materials, and sustainable processes. Drawing motivation from the stories concealed within these materials, he gives new life and purpose to found and recycled resources.

His work integrates centuries-old techniques into the contemporary era – he is not preserving the past, but giving it a space for growth in the future. Each blade is the culmination of a careful selection of base materials and laminating styles to create tools are not only functional, but also a source of deep creative inspiration.

For the Anneal exhibition he has created experimental, long form cutlery, forging reclaimed high tensile stainless-steel ships rigging into delicate, flowing forms. In the hand each piece is both tactile and balanced; multi -faceted hammer work shows the love of function and form.

In an era consumed by disposability and mass repetition, his work stands as quiet resistance. The finished article is more than the sum of its parts. It is an invitation to consider how we make, what we keep, and why we remember.