ARTIST: ROBERT CAMPBELL
Robert Campbell - "New Work" - Digital Video Animation
February 24 - March 21 [Opening: Friday, February 24, 4:45-7 p.m.]
Robert Campbell , video artist, animator and documentary maker presents "New Work". This series of subtle animations explores the formal boundaries between the still and moving image. Robert currently directs the video program at the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle Washington.
ARTIST STATEMENT
The lines between what is considered "video art" and other digital processes have become less distinct. For the Mov-iN Gallery exhibition at the College of Santa Fe, I am presenting a series of 9 "motion photographs": photographic compositions, which have moving parts.
Much of the initial inspiration for this series came from dozens of photos I took for an animation project while in residence in Port Townsend, Washington in 2000 and 2005, at an old abandoned fort called Fort Worden, now a state park. Due to years of continual vandalism and the subsequent Parks Department amelioration of graffiti, as well as the weathering hand of nature, the 100 year old battery walls of Fort Worden serve as some sort of constantly evolving giant abstract expressionist painting.
The photographs of these battery walls are simply reframing and abstracting devices to focus on the accidental beauty of the results of this conversation between the transgressors, the authorities, and nature; a conversation between text, obliterating shape, and the effects of rain, lichen, moss, time, temperature and wind. So, while there is no visible text left to photograph, the shapes and compositions are results of text having been put there, however briefly; over time, perhaps many layers of text, sandwiched between layers of shape and color.
Other photos are collages of hand made marks using acrylic paint, chalk, and watercolor. The photos serve as the basic compositions upon which animated gestures and incidents are recorded, hence the "motion photographs". As in much of my work, my intention is not to draw the viewer into speculation of how the thing works, but to create a work of art that transcends its means. I think every artist aims for this.
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