STEVEN CAMPBELL (SCOTTISH 1953-2007) §
RISING AND FRIEND
£1,375
Modern British & Contemporary Art
Auction: 16 August 2018 at 12:00 BST
Description
Signed and dated 'Dec' 1994' gallery label verso, acrylic on paper
Dimensions
29cm x 20cm (11.5in x 8in)
Footnote
Exhibited: William Hardie Gallery, Glasgow
Note:
Steven Campbell was born in Glasgow and originally worked as a maintenance engineer in a steelworks in Cambulsang before attending Glasgow School of Art and becoming one of the leading Scottish figurative painters of his generation.
Campbell worked alongside the artists Ken Currie, Peter Howson and Adrian Wiszniewski, a group which later became known as the 'New Glasgow Boys'. While their artistic output was not homogenous they all shared an interest in figurative painting during the early 1980s which broke away from the conceptual and minimal trends in Modern art at the turn of the twentieth century.
After graduating from Glasgow School of Art in 1982 Campbell won a Fulbright Scholarship to study at the Pratt Institute in the United States. Campbell worked from a studio in Brooklyn until 1986 and this period was key in establishing his status as an internationally renowned artist whilst raising awareness of Scottish contemporary art on a global scale.
Young Camper Discovering Grotto in The Ground is a major work representative of this period. It appeared in a solo show held at the Barbara Toll Gallery in 1983. Within days of the show, the doyen of the New York art critics, John Russell, fully endorsed the painterly qualities of a young, unknown Scottish artist in his New York Times review. From here it was purchased by significant US contemporary art collectors, Boake and Marian Sells.
Campbell had further solo exhibitions across the world in locations as far reaching as Galerie Pierre Huiber in Geneva (1986) and Marlborough Fine Art in Tokyo (1990). His artwork is influenced by a diverse range of literary fiction from tales by the author P.G. Wodehouse to murder mysteries, resulting in his artworks appearing to be humorous and unsettling. Campbell was also influenced by children's book illustrations accounting for his use of a rich and vibrant palette which intensified after his U.S. period. Campbell's surreal compositions cannot be read as a conventional fictional narrative and his imaginary worlds intentionally challenge the viewer with their dreamlike quality leaving his artwork open to multiple interpretations.
Campbell's brightly coloured acrylic painting, Rising and Friend, painted in 1994 depicts two figures in blue and red shirts, who seem to float weightlessly within an abstract yellow, purple and green matrix. A figure floats inanimately in the background, his arm limply extended, pupils dilated and a shadow cast across his tilted head while the figure in the foreground confronts the viewer face on with a glassy green eyed stare, the hypnotic effect of which is intensified by the closely cropped composition. The tilted perspective is a common feature of Campbell's compositions and reinforces the perplexity of the narrative as the figures seem to float across the space in a fantasy world which is exempt from the earthly limitations of gravity.
This large-scale ink painting, Untitled (Explorers in a Boat), is a piece from the installation On Form and Fiction which was originally exhibited in 1990 at the Third Eye Gallery, Glasgow (now the Centre for Contemporary Art). The other collective remnants of which were part of the major exhibition GENERATION which celebrated 25 years of Contemporary Art in Scotland reflecting the seminal role Campbell played in the success of the movement.
Campbell saw himself as a 'director, writer and producer' of these other-worldly scenes and he often repeated the figures in multiple artworks as if they were a cast of actors. The ink painting depicts two figures in a white sailboat struggling to navigate a stormy sea and is typical of the theatrical narratives which Campbell is renowned for. Campbell's expressive mark making accentuates the drama of the scene as the tempest engulfs the stark white sail giving the painting a captivating kinetic energy and emphasising the peril of the sailors.