Neil Campbell. Interior. Teck Gallery, 2014. Photo: Blaine Campbell.
Neil Campbell: Interior
May 17, 2014 – April 11, 2015
Teck Gallery
Neil Campbell’s work engages with physical space to affect our senses, producing both retinal and phenomenological experience. Working directly on the wall, his geometric imagery transforms architectural space in such a way that the viewer’s attention is directed to the act of perception. With an intuitive consideration of space, Campbell scales and situates images as a resonant response to the nature of their architectural context. The motifs that he employs in these installations engage a visual history that ranges from Conceptual Art to Op, from commercial to tantric.
The work at the Teck Gallery, Interior, can be seen as a response to the essential structure of the space – two facing walls that bracket a large window to the mountains – and as an address to the daily public use of the site for study, conversation and contemplation. As a counterpoint to the exterior view, the title references the interior activity in the gallery, as well as the magnetic pull of the motifs themselves. Painted flame red, both walls are overlaid with mirrored torus shapes (dimensional rings). These large black shapes face each other, their scale situating the viewer between the interplay of the forms. In this instance, Campbell uses doubled geometric torus forms to establish an oscillating sensation that pulls viewers’ energy while projecting a kinetic force outward. Interior’s illusionistic space offers viewers an experience of sensual intelligence in the full sense of mind-spirit-body in which cognition, intuition, emotion and rhythm all are brought into play.
Neil Campbell lives and works in Vancouver. He studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Vancouver School of Art, and Concordia University in Montreal where he received a MFA in 1979.In 2006 he curated Paint: A Psychedelic Primer at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Campbell has had solo exhibitions at Gallery Franco Noero, Turin; Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York; Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York; Art and Public, Geneva, and Blanket, Vancouver. His work has been included in the group shows at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Hayward Gallery, London; Le Magasin, Grenoble; Vancouver Art Gallery; Belkin Gallery, Vancouver; Or Gallery, Vancouver; and Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Montreal. His work is represented by Gallery Franco Noero, Turin; Office Baroque, Brussels; and Macaulay Fine Art, Vancouver.
Curated by Melanie O’Brian.
Events
Artist Talk at 6 pm Saturday, May 17, 2014
Opening Reception to follow the talk