Emily Campbell

About the Artist

Emily Campbell is a visual artist and educator working in Baltimore, MD who holds an MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art and a BA in visual arts from Mercyhurst University.  Previous solo and group exhibitions include Institute of Conemporary Art (Baltimore, MD), IA & A Hillyer (Washington, DC), Maryland Art Place (Baltimore, MD), St, Johns College (Annapolis, MD), Gallery CA (Baltimore, MD), Push Gallery (Asheville, NC), The Delaware Contemporary (Wilmington, DE), School 33 (Baltimore, MD), and Arlington Cultural Affairs (Arlington, VA).  She has participated in residencies at Can Serrat in Spain, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Vermont Studio Center, and Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild.  Campbell currently teaches at Maryland Institute College of Art and Anne Arundel Community College.  

Artist's Statement

My large-scale drawings and smaller paintings feature a series of disorienting and claustrophobic environments in which fictional characters engage in bizarre actions. Each scene presents a slice of a cryptic, non-linear narrative inspired by a range of sources such as Greek mythologies, sci-fi illustrations and historical imagery to explore themes involving ritual, hedonism and crumbling utopia. By combining a variety of sources, I create heterotopic spaces that combine a variety of time periods and blur the boundary between history and myth. This fusion of diverse subjects gives an unsettling hybridity to the characters and landscape thus, producing a post-apocalyptic or dystopic vision. In my drawings, chaotic moments are countered by precisely planned compositions and orchestrated delicate lines, suggesting an elegance and order behind the depiction of irrational and inexplicable action. The smaller paintings often delineate individuals that have been isolated from scenes of my larger drawings. The linear qualities of my sculptures relate directly to the two-dimensional work, functioning in part as an extension or abstraction of the imagery depicted in the drawings. Collectively the objects function as ceremonial props, signifying spiritual or magic qualities of power that certain individuals in the drawings possess.