Art Articles & Reviews

} Ken Campbell - Canoe: Images of a Mystic Journey October 16 to 31 Avenue Gallery, 2184 Oak Bay Avenue Victoria, B.C. 598-2184 Ken Campbell is known as a top illustator and graphic designer here in Victoria. His book covers for Kids Can Press, Orca Books and Stoddard Publishers are memorable. At the moment he’s making a change in his life. Campbell is putting the commercial art behind him, and is entering the world of Fine Art - the world of gallery-type paintings. His debut exhibition, Canoe: Images of a Mystic Journey opens today at The Avenue Gallery on Oak Bay Avenue (2184 Oak Bay Avenue, tel: 598-2184). Many have tried to pull off this tricky transition , and I feel confident that Campbell will succeed handily. Smoke on the Water Campbell grew up in Peterborough, Ontario where his father was an artist, a potter and a documentary filmmaker. “My dad had a definition,” Campbell told me. “The artist, he said, is a designer-craftsman. The craftsman has the technical skills: he knows how to lay down paint, how to mix the exact right colour complement, how to draw all the elements perfectly in proportion. The designer has to deal with the conceptual part: he has to have something worth saying, and has to tell the story in his own way.” By that definition, Campbell is a true artist. At a glance you can see that his craftsmaship is superior. Just consider the subject he’s chosen: the canoe is a subtle and difficult thing to render, not only in its complex convexities but with regard to its weight and balance: the way it seems to move without friction over the surface of the water. As a manipulator of paint, Campbell is ferociously talented. The Canoe series is painted on canvases which have been twice underpainted with a matte black gesso. The major part of the painting is then blocked in with acrylic paint. Subsequently, the image then evolves through patient applications of oil paint. He finishes the picture with an alkyd glaze. “Oil has three advantages,”Campbell explained. “Speed, accuracy and depth. With oil glazes you can achieve darker darks, longer greys, and a hugely supple change of gradation of colour.” As he speaks from a lifetime of experience, his practical notes are worthy of consideration. While black velvet paintings have a bad reputation, other artists well worthy of admiration often work from a black background: Grant Leier of Yellow Point comes to mind. Painting with a rather “dry” brush, one with only a bit of oil colour in it, Campbell lays in his subject with a tender touch. The deep ground tone which remains, peeking through, is almost as important as what’s laid on top. The resulting paint surface offers an image which speaks by suggestion, with a sort of informality. Much is left to the imagination. This technical expertise, while hard-won, is only a means to Campbell’s end. The “designer” part of the equation, that story-teller with something to say, is vital to Campbell’s bid to enter the august realms of Fine Artist. I learned during the course of my visit to his studio that Campbell’s story of this “mystic journey” is not complete within each painting. The concept embraces the entire show - one could publish the series as a story book. Planning the Trip During Campbell’s childhood the canoe was his transport of delight. Algonquin Park, the lakes and rivers north of Lake Superior, and the waterways along the southern edge of the Canadian shield were his playground. And so a canoe trip suggested itself to him as the narrative structure of this series. This is the sort of story that goes deeper than a well-painted and recognizable surface. The canoe is, according to the artist, “a thing of feeling.” “My goal is to make a beautiful painting, but is has to touch the emotions, and be evocative of a place,” he went on. “Not a transcription of particular location, but something less specific and more mysterious.”Campbell has set his canoe in locations relevant to a story. It travels from the homestead to the lake, the portage, the seashore and finally sits afloat among ocean-going boats. Each of these situations is simplified and generalized, allowing space for our memories to flow in. This narrative sequence has an allegorical dimension. The canoe - with no paddler aboard - is available to each of us, and is the way we make our own journey. Campbell called this a mystic journey, though he went on to explain he didn’t mean a religious sort of mysticism. It’s a mysterious passage. “These are places where we go in our lives,” he told me, invoking the allegorical. Clearly these paintings can be appreciated on many levels. The sheer sensual delight of red paint on canvas is part of the pleasure of an actual canoe (Campbell’s is a 16 foot Chestnut canvas and cedar model). The precise and curvaceous geometry of cedar ribs and gunwales is exquisitely mirrored by gently lapping waves. That beauty is here matched by its painted representation. Thanks to the artist, this momentary glimpse is captured forever. Campbell’s paintings breathe confidence and seem to have been executed with apparent ease. It’s easy to forget that hundreds of sketches and technical studies lie behind each compelling image. The subject matter comes from a place deep within. This is a rare marriage of skill and sensibility. ___________________________________________ Copyright © 2003 Robert Amos Robert Amos is an artist and art writer who lives in Victoria, B. C.. He can be contacted by e-mail and you can view his paintings at www.robertamos.com