Thomas Campbell

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V1 GALLERY PRESENTS

UMMMM

A solo exhibition by THOMAS CAMPBELL

In his own humble words Thomas Campbell (born 1969) merely creates “stuff”. But at the same time he is a prominent and necessary catalyst in one of the most interesting contemporary art movements in America. A movement where artists, filmmakers, photographers and musicians joined forces and created a new art scene and redefining the term “folk art”. A scene that involves creators like Bonnie “Prince” Billy,Tommy Guerrero, Margaret Kilgallen, Chris Johanson, Ed Templeton, Barry McGee, Aaron Rose and many others. And a scene that got the accidental title Beautiful Losers based on a book and exhibition curated by Aaron Rose and Christian Strike in 2004.

Thomas Campbell’s artistic universe is filled with soft curves, subtle tones, quirky poetic quotations and strange characters. A friendly melancholy and a loving gratefulness are embedded in each work. But don’t let it fool you. Underneath the calm surface an undercurrent of opposition and rebellion roams. An uneasy ocean of text fragments, aggressive abstract patterns and strange mixed material compositions. His strokes could go either way – along or against the fur. Like a welcoming high five, that could potentially turn it to a well-deserved slap in the face.

In Campbell’s works nature is a force. Clouds drift in the horizon and waves break in the mind. And in this landscape hooded characters are contemplating their tentative position. Their hesitant ‘Ummm’ holds as much power as expressive screams and sullen silence. And the middle of the road could just as easily be perceived as a strong median balancing oscillations as a dumb safe bet. Campbell’s works differ in both form and material. Sometimes his needle and thread roughs it up in organic patchworks. And in other larger works the material transitions are almost seamless dissolving the notion of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. Campbell’s tableaus exist in a space beyond time and place with strange doppelgangers that are sometimes in focus and at other times just parts of a larger mosaic of waves, trees, soil, wind, snowflakes, patterns and paint drips. The heavy bronze underlines the warmth of the wood, the delicacy of the brushstroke and the vulnerability of the cloth. Small works float alone and are at the same time an important element in a more or less confined total installation.

Campbell’s surf films are pure poetic, and almost abstract. Even though the subject matter is more concrete, the films are reflections of the same themes that Campbell’s other works seem to revolve around. At one moment the surfer is at one with nature, riding the wave, the next, he/she is propelled into a maelstrom. The curiosity leads into adventure and out of control. Sublime mastery and complete submission intertwined. And the surfboard is the constant that balances and levels. Campbell’s other films, such as his skate film, connect to this theme and also work as a portrait of a lifestyle. Whereas his other art films are more abstract and obscure, exploring language, expression and emotion.

Underneath or above the movements and the images Campbell has produced a soundtrack freed of genre notions. His record label Galaxia is home to a diverse gang of artists like Tommy Guerrero, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Ray Barbee and the Matsson 2, Mumlers and Peggy Honeywell. While these artists explore different parts of the musical galaxy they have all cast their anchor into the same mentality forming the base of Thomas Campbell’s diverse art: a gratefulness for freedom and the courage to leave the straight road and the GPS behind.

Thomas Campbell lives and works just outside Santa Cruz, USA, in a place that can’t be found on Google maps. He has been pivotal to the creation of a new art movement know for now as the Beautiful Losers. Campbell has exhibited worldwide. In 1999 he finished his first feature film “The Seeding”, in 2004 his second film “Sprout” came out and this summer his third feature film “The Present” premiered in the States. In conjunction with his exhibition at V1 Gallery The GRAND movie theater will host the Scandinavian premier of  “The Present” on Wednesday 28.10. After the premier Mattson 2 and Ray Barbee, two of the artists on Galaxia will play concerts at the jazz club La Fontaine.

V1

MARKO VUOKOLA

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The works of The Seventh Wave are pairs of
photographs each with precisely the same cropping
and angle of view… The camera is on a tripod. I
first take one photograph, and after a while
another. I have wanted to vary the interval,
keeping it “unscientific” and even indefinite.
Anything between two seconds and six hours can
pass between the moments when the pictures were taken.

In some of the pairs, the difference can be seen
easily, while in others it is less obvious. Even
in the blink of an eye, many atoms will revolve,
a grasshopper can leap, and a glimmer of light can change place.”

This was how Marko Vuokola (born 1967) described
the works of The Seventh Wave in 2007. By that
time, the subjects of the images had ranged from
Finnish sea and lake scenes to the grounds of
Versailles, the earth and skies of Texas, and an
Audi dealership in Helsinki’s Herttoniemi suburb.
Since then, the series has been expanded with
images of paradise islands in Vietnam, an urban
landscape and the window of a Finnish apartment building.

A characteristic feature of Marko Vuokola’s work
is that he takes large numbers of pictures, which
he then sorts, selects and rejects until only one
pair, almost perfect, remains of each “theme”.

Marko Vuokola’s art is at once grand – addressing
the major basic issues of life – and restrained.
It is demanding and enduring, similar only to itself.

Since 1989, Marko Vuokola’s work has been in
dozens of exhibitions in Finland, Scandinavia,
other European countries, and in the United
States, Australia and Asia. He held his first
solo exhibition at Galerie Anhava in 1992.

Anhava