DISORIENTED COMBINATIONS

Brian Campbell is a Brooklyn-based artist who was in residence at McColl Center for Visual Art in the fall of 2011. Taking an original approach to the drawing practice, he paints with a mixture of graphite, gum arabic and water in some areas to achieve a soft atmospheric appearance.

 His drawings, like Untitled (Modelo), are usually a combination of different visual sources that he relates to a “Google image search.” He manipulates this concept of word pairings by providing visual outcomes where objects appear peculiar in scale as well in relation to one another. Campbell describes the overarching theme of his work as “a vacancy of modernism,” conveyed through a postmodernist display of the consumerist fantasy. The viewer can also find postmodernist elements in the collage-based appearance and kaleidoscopic overlay of clean geometric lines. There is a subtle humor about his work that seems to mock the kitschy décor that often populates magazines and other visual media nowadays.

 During his residency, Brian Scott Campbell worked with 35 middle school students from Druid Hills Academy and Thomasboro Academy on a collaborative drawing project as his outreach. The students spent time with Brian in the classroom where they learned about his work and techniques as an artist. Each school was then given a 3 x 6 foot sheet of paper and asked to drawing images of things they could find “inside” and “outside,” using Brian’s work as a catalyst. The final product revealed distorted realities of beds in oceans and trees in living rooms. The student’s drawing was on display at McColl Center for Visual Art during a Gallery Reception on November 18, 2011 then returned to each school where they will continue to be on display.