Who I am
Artist Biography
Cindy Campbell is an artist whose current creative practice is concerned with bringing her feelings and perspectives into form through the mediums of ceramics and oil painting. With a Diploma of Fine Art and an Advanced Certificate in Photography, she has built a career over 20 years across the disciplines of painting, photography, craft and design.
Her intention to connect people with ideas, to create community and explore the boundaries of her medium has seen her exhibit work in public and commercial gallery spaces, participate in heritage restoration and collaborate with partners in enterprise. Cindy’s ceramic, photographic and painted works have been acquired into private collections and incorporated into public art projects within Australia and abroad. Cindy lives on Wurundjeri Country (Yarra Valley), after time in Sydney, Central Australia and Southern Tablelands, now making work from her studio with a view to the hills.
Artist Statement
Translating the embodiment of emotion into a contemplation on canvas, Campbell uses paint to reflect her state. PURE is both an expression of Campbell’s inner landscape and an interpretation of her surroundings. This series of paintings works in harmony, humming with layers of colour and feeling, inviting close inspection while rejecting distraction and chaos.
Employing colour to communicate a state of being, Campbell pairs repetitive brushstrokes with tonal layers to convey how the experience of a moment is composed of many moments gone before. In memory, in our body, in our environment: our present is a coalescence of the past.
Cindy Campbell, outdoors at her Studio, 2024
Mediums
Across all the mediums I employ, I prefer to approach my work in a two-dimensional way: including with porcelain in ceramics. My pieces begin as two-dimensional forms and are symmetrical; when viewed in profile they appear as flat shapes.
Oil Painting
Painting with oils brings me great joy. The way the texture and flow of oil paint makes my ideas and feelings within manifest on canvas is so rewarding.
Starting with an under-colour, I cover the stark whiteness of the canvas. Usually I fall in love with this layer, then continue to paint over the top. I like to stop and reflect at this point, aware of this moment and the feelings coming in to the painting.
If I love the work with this first touch, then I honour my process and leave the painting, moving on to the next canvas. Through self-examination, I determine whether it’s ok to leave it – seeking a sense that the artwork wants to be as it is right now. I feel it’s a privilege to be in the moment like this.
When painting in this flow state, I lose the concept of time. Squeezing a colour onto a palette board and being open to what comes next is such a freeing way to work. I find I am solid and feel connected. This work contrasts with the other mediums I use: design, ceramics and photography require technical practice.
My paintings prioritise the expression of the medium, via texture, colour and pattern – with freedom and experimentation driving the outcome.
Ceramics
On completion of a Diploma in Fine Arts in Sydney, majoring in Painting and Print Making, I moved to Central Australia. I wanted to continue these processes, study more and find a creative way to connect to the community. The only local course I could join was in ceramics. I was surprised to find that, within a short time, I was captured – I love this process so much. To create something that you can touch, live with and use.
I use ceramics as a flat medium similar to the way I practise photography, painting and print-making. I design ceramic pieces flat, as a two-dimensional shape, which is then transformed into three-dimensional vessels as I build the pieces by hand.
I make functional tableware, bowls, cups and tiles. They are fine, refined, beautiful to look at and to use.
Click here to view ceramic gallery.
Photography
I fell in love with photography from a young age. I’m a visual person and see in pictures. Natural light is my greatest inspiration: colour, tone, light, reflections and shadows interest me most.
My first career was hands-on, working in photographic studios behind cameras, lighting subjects, and processing prints in the lab. At this time I studied technical photography.
Now my photographic focus is more creative than commercial. In awe of natural light and all the options it gives us, I contemplate and capture light on objects, in reflections, shadows, mists, street lights. I love the way photography embodies stillness: no noise, no movement. The images simplifies a scene, reducing the clutter and busyness of life.
I feel comfortable holding a camera, it’s like it’s a part of me. Candid shots interest me most; I increasingly find my desire is to capture a moment rather than set up a scene.
Click here to view photographic gallery.
