Selected for Ingram Prize 2021

Glut, 2018, recycled & found materials. Photo by Mike Garlick

I’m absolutely thrilled to have been selected as a finalist at this year’s Ingram Prize, the leading annual prize for contemporary artists in the UK. 

My selected piece Glut, was created in 2018.  It’s an outpouring, an emotional and physical wailing in response to environmental issues including waste, our consumerist society, factory farming, the plastic oceans, animal extinctions, climate breakdown.  And the loss of our boxer dog.

The materials, especially personal items speak of past lives, loss, textiles, craft. In contrast, the organic forms symbolise death, violence, but also vulnerability and renewal - the duality of horror and tenderness. Materiality and process are part of the message, embedded in the narrative: the work is hand-made, labour-intensive and my use of recycled and found materials relates to our relationship with matter, nature and ourselves. Collecting objects and materials is intrinsic to the process.  

The work is a form of artivism, a suturing in an attempt to heal.  Timely for COP26.

An exhibition of the finalists’ work, including mine, will be held at Unit 1 Gallery/Workshop, 1 Bard Rd, London W10 6TP, Friday 19 - Friday 26 November ’21. I hope you can come!  The winners will be announced on 18 November in London. 

It’s so wonderful to be part of the fantastic line up of artists and prestigious exhibition!

Here’s one of the the latest press articles.

‘From The Inside’

Some of my work from B-Wing, a project I co-curated in 2019, is featured in ‘From The Inside’, a book by Dave Cable, published this year about Shepton Mallet Prison. B-Wing was a 2 week site-responsive arts event in the prison involving 8 artists/writers and special events, part of Somerset Art Works Festival ‘19.

The book has already sold out, which may lead to a second print run. Along with the main book, an extra little booklet was published, devoted to our B-Wing project. It’s a great legacy to our project!

Back in the Studio:

It’s lovely to be back in the studio making again. I’ve been tie dying with various home-made plant inks, stitching, weaving and wrapping. The labour intensive processes are linked to care and repair. 

It took me several days to clear up after a flurry of projects. Due to rain damage, I’ve had to have a new roof made to store some of my work - thanks to Nick Weaver for help with this. I’ve finally made space to develop my next piece based around pangolins and their plight. Pangolins are now an endangered species - the most trafficked mammal in the world.

Exhibition in Taiwan

So glad my work Pyre arrived safely in Taiwan (80+ bound elements), and excited that it will soon be on exhibition at International Biennale, Paper Fiber Art 2021/22, Change: NTCRI, Nantou 54246, Taiwan; 12 Nov-10 April ’22. There will be a film of the exhibition published for the opening - watch this space!

Pyre, 2020, charred found objects (detail)

Forthcoming workshop:

I’ll be running a free Eco Christmas Tree Decoration-making Workshop on 10 Dec ‘21 at The Art Bank, Shepton Mallet BA4 5AD. Inspired by our natural world, you will be creating small sculptural creature or plant forms using recycled and found materials including copper wire and found objects.  We will explore form, texture, pattern, colour…  Materials will be transformed into imaginative, decorative forms.  The workshop will encourage an inventive approach, finding new ways of making.  Ideal for your Christmas Tree or eco hand-made Christmas gifts!

You are welcome to bring along your own collection of colourful beads and buttons to add to your pieces.

Thanks to the support of Shepton Mallet Town Council.

To Book email: fionacampbell-art@sky.com 

Testing Time

While we’re all learning how to live differently during this terrible pandemic - a worrying time for humanity - I’m trying to find positives in all this instability.  It will undoubtedly change the world - let’s hope, in many ways for better.  

On a micro scale, artists are having to re-adjust our practices and finances after cancelled projects and exhibitions.  For me, a large amount of prep for future work may be wasted; several shows, public commissions and freelance workshops are now cancelled.  Our Royal Society of Sculptors Gilbert Bayes Award Winners Show couldn’t tour to Grizedale and my latest piece Pyre - charred bundles of treasured finds created in response to wildfires - is in a ghost exhibition Incendiary.  At least we managed to install, so it can be viewed digitally!

Pyre, 2020, 90 x 115 cms aprx. Photos above and below by Stephen Lenthall

On the upside, last week, completely unexpectedly, I was delighted to hear I’ve won the Red Line Art Works Award for my series of works Snakes and Ladders (created for B-Wing), Glut and Accretion!  My trophy’s arrived in the post and I am extremely grateful to Red Line Art Works for the award - it comes at a timely moment.  Red Line Art Works is an international organisation reflecting on global issues, the state of our world and global justice. ‘Our global audience is inspired by art with a conscience, art that reflects these big problems’.

David Attenborough recently said in an interview with Big Issue ‘In times of crisis, the natural world is a source of both joy and solace... we are part of the natural world.  If we damage the natural world, we damage ourselves.’  Ironically, in this crisis nature continues, bird song seems louder and new life is bursting out everywhere. The message is profound.  To re-focus and make sense of things, I’m taking life at a slower pace.  I’ve been spending time gardening, appreciating what I have, sowing veggie seeds, mending, sketching, tentatively picking up loose ends and attempting new approaches in work.  I’ve collected plant debris for hand-made paper and fibre works, and made dye from avocado pits. I gave my first Zoom live-stream artist talk online (recorded), in conversation with Richard Tomlinson and interactive viewers. It was part of Ignite Somerset's monthly Creative Network sessions.  I’m also producing a series of simple art project slideshows that can be used by all ages (watch this space!)  The savings in travel are great for the pocket and the environment.  The sky has far fewer vapour trails.  I’m in awe of hospital workers, all the committed carers, community support, and the creative resilience of artists.  Through virtual chat we can still make connections and I’m finding this crisis brings us closer.  

At the bottom of this blog, I’ve pictured a few of my artworks currently available for sale.  Some of these (under £200) I am selling as part of #artistsupportpledge - an initiative by Matt Burrows to foster generosity and support among artists. My instagram details these artworks. Please contact me if you need further information.

Creativity Works posted 5 ways to wellbeing: connect, keep learning, be active, take notice and give.  I’m trying to embed these in my routine.

In an essay ‘Against Interpretation’ by Susan Sontag, she says our ‘culture based on excess.. overproduction… material plenitude… crowdedness… dulls our sensory faculties…  We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more’.  And that was in 1964!

Look after yourselves in this testing time and let’s hope we learn many lessons in the process!

Prices range from £60 - £1950 + p&p

Drawing on Dorset, quality paperback book, £15 + p&p

Bumper Year

Glut at Gilbert Bayes Award 2019 Winners Exhibition, Royal Society of Sculptors, London

Thinking back over this year of highlights and achievements, I have a lot to be thankful for. 2019 has been a bumper year for me. Peppered with a whole range of community projects, workshops, new work, awards and exhibitions, it has been a turning point in my artistic career.

I was delighted to be invited to give a valedictory speech at my MFA graduation ceremony, Bath Spa Uni at the start of this year. Fuelled by the MFA, my work developed over the year. Ladders became a theme I explored - from an Outdoor Arts Development Course with Activate, B-Side & Bournemouth Arts by the Sea Festival, to my Cells Residency and Solo exhibition at Town Hall Arts, Trowbridge, which in turn led to B-Wing - a project I co-curated with Luminara Star at Shepton Mallet Prison, as part of Somerset Art Weeks Festival. Gaining an Arts Council England/National Lottery project grant amongst other funding awards for B-Wing enabled me to reach new heights in scale and ambition. As part of B-Wing, I worked with various community groups and schools. I was interviewed on ITV South West by Ben McGrail, and loved meeting John McCarthy, who opened our Special Events Day. I worked with some wonderful inspiring artists including Lou Baker, whose work resonates with my own.

Winning a Gilbert Bayes Award with the Royal Society of Sculptors, of which I am now a member, was a real highlight. Development sessions over the year with a talented cohort has concluded with an exhibition currently on at RSS, London, touring to Grizedale Sculpture in March 2020.

Other exhibitions included Incendiary and Drawing on Dorset (touring show), both of which have mileage for future shows in 2020. Over the summer I made a large site-specific outdoor piece Crown of Thorns, shown at the entrance to Bishops Palace, Wells, in Re-Formation curated by Heritage Courtyard Gallery.

Crown of Thorns, Re-Formation at Bishops Palace. Photo by Ann Cook

Some of my workshops and community projects brought about new collaborations and friendships. Working with students at Bruton School for Girls led to a room-sized installation. I recently gave a talk to Bath University architecture students and will be participating in their final review. In the New Year I’m running a short sculpture course starting 8 January for 5 weeks on Wednesdays 6-8pm at the Cheese & Grain, Frome (book via Frome Community Education).

A few commissions and sales have kept the wolf from the door. I made a Great Crested Newt for Carymoor Environmental Trust, a series of swans necks for a celebrity’s winter garden (based on a lake theme, the swans’ bodies will be bushes), and sold Butterfly on Spiky Pod via Art Parks.

Swan necks awaiting collection for their new home in a celeb’s garden

My new website here on Squarespace, created this year, gives my work a fresh face.

I owe thanks to so many for their support: Royal Society of Sculptors, Patricia Brien, Town Hall Arts, Somerset Art Works, Arts Council England, Somerset Skills and Learning, Somerset Community Foundation, Shepton Mallet Town Council, Heritage Courtyard Gallery, Shepton Mallet Prison/Jailhouse Tours, and Nick Weaver for his technical assistance. There are many more I could thank too…

Happy New Year! Here’s wishing you a positive start to 2020!

B-Wing, Shepton Mallet Prison - Looking Back

Snakes and Ladders, Fiona Campbell, found and recycled materials. Photos: 1 Dave Cable; 3 Caroline Bond; 4 Jason King; 5 Dave Cable

Snakes and Ladders comprise several dysfunctional hand-made ladders and entrail forms. Two are over 7ms in length, one hovering, suspended in the skylight. They refer to ascension, escape, dreams, inspired by Piranesi’s ‘The Bridge’ from his Imaginary Prisons series, the endless human cycle of striving, greed and suffering.

B-Wing, a multi-layered collaborative art project I co-curated with Luminara Star, has been an epic journey, an immersive art experience, extraordinary, and challenging.  Held in Shepton Mallet Prison’s B Wing, a massive decommissioned space spanning 3 floors, 8 artists and writers installed site-responsive works throughout the building, some large-scale, others intimate, to be discovered. The exhibition was only open to the public for 16 days during Somerset Art Weeks Festival, packed with fully booked special events and over 1300 visitors. Community workshops were held prior to opening. Preparation has taken a year (with report writing and finances still to finish off :-/)  

A week ago I took down my last piece from Shepton Prison, feeling exilarated and exhausted. The physical effort of making, installing and takedown was compounded by the amount of curatorial work I’ve invested in B-Wing over the past months/year.  Huge thanks to Nick Weaver for his technical help during the making, installation, dismantling and transport stages.  Each was a complex process with precarious moments - apt for my purposefully rickety Snakes and Ladders piece.  The work entailed some intricate engineering, and construction of a makeshift storage space for my ladder sections. Thanks to Jason Nosworthy for also helping instal. 

There have been so many moving moments, especially meeting and hearing John McCarthy speak on our action-packed Special Events Day. The whole contemporary art in prison experience threw up some very emotional reactions from visitors and participants. I was at the prison virtually every day for a month - throughout installation, the various events, and take down, engaging and absorbing visitors’ responses. We were/are delighted with the feedback, support and level of engagement from such a wide demographic, and so grateful to our venue hosts Shepton Mallet Prison and patrons (see below) for enabling the project. 

It’s been wonderful working with such dedicated, talented artists and writers.  I’ve loved the cross-fertilisation! Thanks to the team effort and hard work of artists/writers Lou Baker, Rosie Jackson, Scott Sandford, Geoff Dunlop, Lucy Large, Alice Maddicott and co-curator Luminara Star, I feel our B-Wing project was a resounding success. 

IN.BRS.2019.39 Collaboration by Scott Sandford and Lou Baker. Photo: Dave Cable

I was excited by the way my ladders were reflected in Scott Sandford’s black pool and how our artworks in B-Wing resonated together.

Glut, Fiona Campbell, found and recycled materials. Photos: Above 1 Jason King; 2 Dave Cable. Below 1 Geoff Dunlop; 2 Dave Cable; 3 Jason King

Tongue, Fiona Campbell, found and recycled materials. Photos: 1 Jason King; 2 Guinevere King

Above - community group work: ‘Possessions I & II’. Images 1, 2 & 3: Collaborative work by adults I worked with. Image 4 Work by Year 10s from Whitstone School & Home ed children, led my me and Luminara Star. Photos: 1 Angela Knapp; 2 Caroline Bond

One of my pieces Dawn Chorus was a simple sound work installed in a cell. It can’t be pictured, but Trevor Smith wrote an article published in A-N, describing his response to this piece and other works in B-Wing.

I addition to my Join-in-the-Conversations with Lou Baker and guided art tours, I ran a family friendly sculpture workshop. B Wing was transformed for a morning into a hive of activity. Families spilled out into the main atrium of the prison wing, working together on abstract sculptures made from recycled materials. Lovely comments from participants include:

“I’ve never mixed materials with wire before - I love doing it”.. “loved the freedom to explore creatively and spend time with my son”.. “I really enjoyed it but if there was one thing I would change it would be the heating” (Marley, age 6)

Rather than detailing all the events, I’m using pictures to tell the story.   Quality images are so valuable. Thanks to Dave Cable, Geoff Dunlop, Jason King, Caroline Bond, Guinevere King, Scott Sandford, Barry Cawston, Lou Baker, Prerna Chandiramani and Angela Knapp for kindly taking some excellent ones pictured here.

Feedback comments include:

‘One of the best experiences of art I’ve encountered in years.’ Dominic Weston

‘Powerful, disquieting, dark and fascinating. Not an easy show but I thoroughly recommend you get to it if you can. Particularly liked the work by Lou Baker and Fiona Campbell .’ Iain Cotton

‘A remarkable series of works to fit an extraordinary space’. John McCarthy

‘Absolutely amazing exhibition with astonishing works exploring a rich tapestry of ideas and interventions.’ Adam Grose

‘Incredibly sensitive use of space and levels. Darkness, depth, hope and light.  Solidarity. … I loved the anchorite cell, the poetry - the use of levels, the ‘chapel’s’ sacred invitation.  The ladders - exploring movement and dimensions - spine and prehistoric relic..’ Amanda Miles

‘Absolutely fantastic!’ Duncan Cameron

‘Brilliantly conceived and executed’. Justine Bonner

‘A very full emotional experience, the work, its placement. Very poignant.’ Rachel Leach

We took part in several radio chats and were thrilled to be featured on BBC and ITV. A film has also been made by Gillian Taylor with BBC of John McCarthy’s interview in response to B-Wing.

For further information visit my previous B-Wing blog posts and our B-Wing website: b-wing.weebly.com

B-Wing is supported by Arts Council England & National Lottery, Somerset Skills and Learning, Somerset Community Foundation, Shepton Mallet Prison, Somerset Art Works, Shepton Town Council, Hauser & Wirth Somerset, Cranmore Parish Council, MJW Architects, and private donors.

Time for a rest and reflection!

B-Wing, Contemporary Art in Unexpected Places

Making one of my giant ladder forms. Photo by Jason King

I’ve been focused on the lead up to B-Wing, an ACE-funded arts project in Shepton Mallet Prison I’m co-curating with Luminar Star, alongside 6 other artists.  Fuelled by the idea of presenting art in unexpected places, the prison’s cavernous B Wing will be transformed into an immersive experience.  Curation has been all-consuming, involving a huge amount of fundraising, planning, management, PR/radio chats, meetings…  In tandem, I’ve been making artwork for it. 

The practicalities of making large-scale work is challenging with limited studio space.  Thankfully, we had a good summer, enabling me to work in the garden on sculptural pieces.  I’m grateful to Shepton Mallet Prison for allowing me to take up residency in B Wing’s Servery to develop my artwork, and thanks to Nick Weaver for use of his wood workshop facilities and technical assistance.

I’m making large-scale site-responsive sculptural installations involving dysfunctional rickety ladders, referring to the game snakes and ladders.  Interacting with the space, one will be suspended high up in the skylight of B Wing.  Piranesi’s Tavola VII (The Bridge), from The Imaginary Prisons series, resonates with my concerns around freedom and confinement, the endless human cycle of desire, striving, greed, suffering, and human imposition of nature.   Recycled and found everyday materials - wood, fabric, paper, cardboard, wire, twine, wool - are being transformed into drawings in space.

My skeletal ladder structures refer to precarious lives, dreams, escape.  ‘All realization of potential’ Bachelard observes, ‘is conceived as elevation… depicted as a rising curve.’ Ladders are the imaginary stairways of spiritual ascension, dating back to genesis.  I want mine to appear winglike and bonelike, reminiscent of flight, and extinct animals hung in museums.  They will be translucent in parts, ghostly, dreamlike, surreal.  Layers of reused monochrome collaged newspapers add a frailty, evidence of our consumerist world. In contrast, flesh coloured handwoven and wrapped entrail forms will dangle and entwine around ladders, bewailing the heavy realities of violence, destruction, waste and suffering around us.

The work raises questions - are we all offenders given the state of our world today?

We have numerous free workshops, talks, tours and performances, many come with free get-into-prison tickets. Collaboration is key.  We’ve been engaging community groups making work to be featured as part of our exhibition.  I worked with Whitstone School and adult groups creating collaborative pieces, based around possessions, identity, marking time, time as value, bound. ‘Conversations became the threads that made our connections.’  

Saturday 28th September is B-Wing’s action packed Special Events Day from 10-5.  It will be opened by John McCarthy, renowned writer and broadcaster held hostage in the Lebanon.  The day includes a performative Join in the conversation with Lou Baker and me, Lucy Large’s artist talk, a performance by Luminara Star and Rosie Jackson’s poetry reading.  It will be a day to meet the artists and celebrate. Please come along!

 On National Poetry Day, Thursday 3rd October, 2-4pm, poet Rosie Jackson will lead a poetry performance, 18 Poets in B-Wing, featuring poets from the South West.  On Saturday 5th October, 10-1, I'll be running a family friendly sculpture workshop.  See attached posters (designed by Chris Lee ) and visit: www.b-wing.weebly.com  & social media: @bwing2019

B-Wing opens during Somerset Arts Weeks Festival, 21st September - 6th October, daily 10am-5pm. Reduced entrance (exhibition and prison): £10 adults, accompanied children free.

I’ll be posting about my other projects soon!