[Many thanks to Veerle Poupeye (Critical.Caribbean.Art) for bringing this item to our attention.] Jamaican-born visible artist Charles Campbell is the winner of the 2022 Jack and Doris Shadbolt Basis for the Visible Arts VIVA Award. Jamaicans.com experiences:
Charles Campbell, a visible artist who was born in Jamaica, is the winner of the 2022 Jack and Doris Shadbolt Basis for the Visible Arts VIVA Award, which brings with it a $15,000 grant. Campbell is a painter, sculptor, and efficiency artist based mostly in Fernwood who has been working in a number of disciplines for some 30 years. At age 52, race and local weather change are his present most crucial motivations for creating his artwork.
In an interview with Vancouver Island Free Every day, Campbell famous that the world at this second seems like “issues are closing down,” including that the world resides by means of an ecological tragedy and a segmentation of teams. He seeks to recapture the sense of risk on the planet by means of his artwork and assist others to take a bigger perspective. Campbell believes that his artwork includes capturing the experiences he and different Black folks/radicalized folks have and understanding how they may also help everybody navigate the long run. He stated the historical past of Black folks demanded that cultures be reinvented and that individuals transfer ahead. He added that the historical past of slavery with its brutality and makes an attempt to eradicate Black social buildings and personhood required a kind of “cultural ferment” that allowed folks to “reconstruct” themselves.
Campbell moved along with his household from Jamaica to Prince Edward Island when he was 5 years outdated. He wished to reconnect along with his Jamaican heritage, nonetheless, and moved again to the island after incomes a level in positive arts from Montreal’s Concordia College. His curiosity in problems with race and identification whereas in artwork faculty compelled him to reconnect to his “Jamaican-ness.” He remained in Jamaica for 5 years to pursue a grasp’s diploma at Goldsmiths School in London and spent 5 years there. He then moved to Vancouver Island earlier than returning to Jamaica once more for an additional two years throughout which era he labored because the chief curator on the Nationwide Gallery of Jamaica.
His curiosity in Jamaican historical past, particularly that of slavery and the way its colonial previous impacts the social dynamics and issues with the violence of the present day, and his artwork helps him to discover and develop these concepts. He’s all the time asking himself, “How did we find yourself right here?” He feels that, in Canada, info just like the nation’s basis originating within the genocide of indigenous populations are “glossed over,” however in Jamaica, it’s tougher to fake that its financial foundations had been something aside from slavery.
His time at Goldsmiths launched him to efficiency artwork, which introduced extra focus and a focus to his dedication to depicting Caribbean historical past, which was too simply dismissed in his work. He continued portray whereas exploring efficiency and sculpture by means of a personality from a Jamaica people competition referred to as “Jonkonnu.” He created a personality referred to as “Actor Boy” from a utopian future and had him ask “How did we get right here.” [. . .]
For full article, go to https://jamaicans.com/jamaican-born-artist-based-in-canada-wins-visual-arts-award/
[Photo above by Mark Mushet.]