Just pretty pictures? Cressida Campbell vanquishes the sceptics | John McDonald
It’s hard to imagine anyone not responding positively to Campbell’s inventiveness, to her skill with colour and composition, and to the truly staggering commitment of time and energy that has gone into these works. The word-of-mouth factor will play a crucial role in drawing audiences.
The show doesn’t proceed chronologically but has been divided into six themes: still life, interiors, plants, studio, bushland, and water views. This doesn’t quite take account of four striking self-portraits, in which we see four versions of a sullen expression and an unruly mane of red hair; a portrait of the artist’s late husband, Peter Crayford; and a wall of juvenilia that reveals a precocious pre-pubescent imagination. It’s clear there is no way Campbell can be stereotyped.
As a result, the overwhelming majority of pictures in this exhibition have been borrowed from private collections. As is so often the case, the museums were late to the party, as they were with William Robinson, and continue to be with other artists, notably Peter Godwin, whose work has been collected by Campbell herself. Meanwhile, they have acquired truckloads of fashionable junk.
If her pictures of everyday objects are on a different plane from many of her peers, it’s her expertise in composition that makes the difference. As with the ukiyo-e printmakers, with whom she is compared in this show, Campbell understands that even the simplest motif becomes more dynamic if shown as part of an obstructed view or from an unusual angle. Each composition is the fruit of an exhaustive thought process.
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