04/02/2010-04/03/2010: Jon Campbell - Seen And Not Seen
STYX Project Space is proud to present the first German solo exhibition of Jon Campbell.
Jon Campbell first showed in STYX's inaugural exhibition alongside Melissa Frost in July 2008. At the time, Campbell's paintings were populated with individuals whose psychological conditions were reflected in their external, near-abstract situations. With an almost tyrannical treatment of his subjects that garnered comparisons to Francis Bacon, whose epic distortions are similarly rooted in a sharp existentialism, Campbell's work refuted the clichés of both figurative and abstract painting; what viewers encountered was a new Expressionism - a visual language for the 21st century that was nonetheless rooted in classical painterly values.
Since then, the artist has embarked upon a rather challenging transition from canvas to paper. In this boldly unpredictable move, Jon Campbell's work has been preoccupied with the cartography of the bloated, often male figure. His forms often evoke the later work of Philip Guston, though Campbell's palette is much darker, as is the mood. His subjects experience isolation so profoundly that they are nearly zombified by the encounter, left egoless and vulnerable in a post-human world.
Says the artist, "I have an insatiable appetite for painting and that takes many different forms. These works are intimate letters to people (or places) and are also addressing myself - exploring different layers of my emotional and psychological terrain - and my memory. My process is spontaneous and relies on intuition - harnessing the chaos inherent in that - in order to construct a picture; itself, a symbol of that process."
Jon Campbell was born in 1982 in Kingston, NY, USA. His mother, Nancy Campbell, also a painter, exposed Jon to painting at the age of two, when he would watch her paint watercolors in her attic studio. Campbell has been making images of his own since that age. He attended the Woodstock School of Art on a full scholarship, the School of Visual Arts, and the School of Art+Design at Purchase College, from where he received his B.F.A. as a Magna Cum Laude graduate. His paintings have been exhibited internationally, and are in numerous private collections. Jon Campbell has been living and working in Berlin, Germany since May 2007.
Opening Reception: 04 February 2010, 7-10 pm
Closing Reception: 04 March 2010, 7-10 pm
Opening hours:
Fridays & Saturdays 3-4 pm or by appointment.
