Norman Grindley/ Staff Photographer
Tribal Roots by Campbell.Sana Rose, Contributor
Friday October 4 marked the opening of the solo exhibition by artist Robert Campbell titled "The Spirit Lives On" at the Gallery Pegasus in New Kingston. The sub-themes in the show range from nature and social interaction among people to culture with religious undertones. An artist known for his works depicting women and masks, Campbell displays a small collection of small-scale works with peopled images in relief and free form in clay. His characteristic mask and "Bumpy Heads" are included in the show.
The artist hand-colours his bisque-fired clay pieces giving a matte texture and mounts the relief images on framed canvas. The decorative backgrounds on the canvases are unrelated to the images. In addition, Campbell creates decorative markings in the clay itself and that is also uncomplimentary to the images.
The free form sculpture show that Campbell is more adept at manipulating form and controlling his material as opposed to the relief pieces where formal problems become more evident. The format of the reliefs follow the shape of the complete images creating irregular shaped pieces with mainly rounded edges. These formats produce complementary contrasts with the rectangular frames. However, with most of the reliefs, Campbell is unable to mould the images convincingly and liberate the forms from the slabs of clay, managing instead to twist the forms. Only in one relief, "My Paradise", does Campbell manage to create perspective through the various levels in the clay and employ better draughtsmanship.
Throughout the exhibition, one is unable to gauge the nature of the spirit of which the title of the show speaks. The exhibition is a pot-pourri of sorts showing the various interests of the artist. There is no strong thematic cord that really holds the show together to create a truly cohesive body of work.
What we are confronted with is an artist slowly acquainting himself with his medium of clay, the result of which is spurts of experimentation in colour, texture and form. Generally, the exhibition offers little challenge to the viewer but of all the pieces presented, the better explorations are 'Tribal Roots' (mask), 'Guidance' (relief), 'Pride of Jamaica', 'Untitled' and 'Nature's Love'. The last two are both free form hanging pieces with the added visual interest of tapered coils at the bases of the cylindrical forms. So then, of what spirit does Robert Campbell speak as stated by the title of the show? Perhaps his own spirit as a young artist as he continues his artistic pursuits but with a little more risk-taking that accompanies deeper experimentation and exploration, Robert Campbell would live on in a more creative artistic landscape. The exhibition closed yesterday.
