todd camplin featured artist

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m o dern dallas

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FEATURED ARTIST

TODD CAMPLIN

With an anti-foundational textual
based aesthetic images, I focus With
an anti-foundational educational
background in deconstruction
approach to creating interdisciplinary
studies, philosophy, design, and
painting/drawing, and collaboration
shows my diverse background. It is my
belief that artists must be
interdisciplinary in their knowledge in
order to draw inspiration for their works.
Artists not steeped in philosophy will
never reach beyond repeating the
past forms. Philosophy helps the artist to
create parameters to create their work.
Design is the foundation of
craftsmanship, painting and drawing is
founded in concepts, and art history
combines the processes together. I
collaborated with Australian artist
David Sequeira on an installation at
the Biblical Art Center of Dallas for the
poetry play, Prayers of Dallas, by Fred
Turner. I think it is important to stay in
contact with individuals that are
instrumental in your development as
an artist. Some of my mentors are
museum curators and art professors like,
Dr. Richard Brettell, painter/new media
John Pomara, sculpture Greg Metz,
sculptor Brent T. Oglesbee, printmaker
Laurin D. Notheisen, painter Walter
Stomps, and painter Robert Jessup.

Digital Portraits

Fashion

Text 3030

According to the metaphysical condition of Being, Heidegger asserts that one must
be rooted in one’s community. Rooted-ness is the essential for an artist to create a
regional status and understanding of the folk. I have been rooted in Texas and
Kentucky and many of my exhibitions reflect this idea of rooted-ness. My work has
been exhibited in Guanjuato, Mexico; Houston/Austin/Dallas, Texas;
Lexington/Bowling Green/Bardstown/ Madisonville/Dawson Springs, Kentucky;
Columbus, Ohio. I have been collected by the Dawson Springs Museum, Western
Kentucky University Women’s Studies department, HJ Bott (a Houston, Texas based
visual artist) Artist Thornton of the Thornton Foundation, and Warren Weitman (the
Chairman of Sotheby's North and South America). My involvement in the communities
that I live/lived extended to my work with academic pursuits such as my work with
the University of Texas journal: Sojourn Journal of the Arts and Humanities where I
edited the art section for two years. I also have interviews in the Kentucky newspaper:
the Amplifier and a Mississippi magazine the KABN. I have been educated in both
Kentucky and Texas and I have been represented by galleries in both states.

Digital Portraits

On Subject Matter

Signature: A handwritten signature of the subject (repeated and placed into
patterns) and an audio recording of the subject saying his/her name, then
edited on the computer and the printed on Dibond.

My work is inspired by Jacques Derrida’s writings on naming and the signature.
Derrida describes the signature as being an event or honest moment that
happens without any forethought. Following from this description, I began
exploring the signature as subject matter. I started with covering my
apartment walls with my own signature, and then I had a friend write her
signature on a wall as I documented the work. I began painting people's signatures,
and finally I began creating the print series. The audio recording
of the print also came from Derrida’s idea of "The Ear of the Other." We hear
words, deconstruct the information and then we interpret what we hear.
I record a person’s voice, the computer interprets the voice, and I print
the image.

Historically speaking, the portrait has been the bread and butter of many great
artists. From Rembrandt to Warhol, artists have been reinventing the portrait to
fit the needs of their patrons. Rembrandt had students paint history paintings
while he worked directly with his patron on the portraits. Warhol photographed
his subjects and had his factory produce the screen printed images on paper
and canvas. Through portraits, both Rembrandt and Warhol help pay for less
lucrative but important art. Many young artists will make pencil drawings for family
and friends to make money. Many times the goal of a portrait artist is to make
money through portraits to fund other projects, however there are exceptions.
For Chuck Close, portraits are his main focus and not for the monetary benefits,
but for the experimental adventure that portraits can provide. I’m not sure what
direction my work is taking me, but I hope I am always more concern with the
more with experimental adventure, rather than the monetary benefits of portrait
making.

The signature and the voice are like fingerprints. A portrait is a work of art that
portrays an individual uniqueness. These works are portraits and thus they are
named after the subject.

Text: I take text and abstract the words in images. Sometimes I pull the text back
out of the image. Other times I create texts that stay abstracts. I use words and
phrases from popular media and from personal messages. I pick words at random
from a dictionary and many times I pick words that have a personal meaning to
me. Words have always been a mystery to me. I read some words backwards, I
drop prefixes and suffixes to words when I am reading, plus I read a few letters
backwards. I want to crack to code of words and at the same time help others
experience text the way I perceive text, a mystified abstract.

Smartis

Dreams

resource:

Elizabeth Owens Designs

www.elizabethowensdesigns.com

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