Fiona Campbell was selected, together with 7 other artists, to produce a series of eco artwork for Bristol’s Big Green Week, June 2012, in her role as a Green Capital Artist-in-Residence.
Working mainly from her studio in Cranmore, Fiona also set up a small studio space at the Create Centre, Bristol, to show the public the development of her work planned for the Green Festival. Visitors could see Fiona at work on certain days.
Fiona’s work for the Green Capital Residency related to her interest in primal forms, vitalism and nature’s cyclical persistence. Utilising found and recycled materials was an important aspect of the work. In addition to using discarded objects from her locality in Somerset, she incorporated things she retrieved near the Create Centre and around Bristol, such as discarded wool strewn on the bridge, wheels, hubs and tyres. The paint she used on some of the Diatoms was recycled. 'I like the combination of urban materials to suggest organic structures’. Fiona
A series of Diatoms made from recycled materials, were floated in the harbour by the Arnolfini for a fortnight in June, as site-responsive artworks. To coincide with this exhibit Fiona ran a ‘Family Mash Up’ drop-in workshop at the Arnolfini for participants to create their own colourful floating recycled sculptures, based on organic forms. From the workshop they could look down onto the harbour and get inspired by the floating diatoms.
Fiona’s sketchbooks were displayed in the Arnolfini Reading Room for the duration of her residency.
Inspired by a Taoist line, echoed in the title, Fiona created ‘Man Models himself on Earth, Earth on Heaven’. This piece reflects her interest in the network of threads weaving through all things. The stretching human form - reminiscent of a tree - emerges from woven, cocooned layers, reaching upwards to a higher level and our energy source. It represents the vital forces in nature and potential re-birth of humanity in a new, purer state. Connected to the earth, we have the potential for greatness if we respect the rest of nature.
The materials are very much part of the subject: reclaimed metals of the earth.
© Copyright Fiona Campbell. All rights reserved, 2021
Diatom IX
54 x 54 x 24cms diameter
Reclaimed bicycle wheel, wire, bootletops, tyre tube.
Photo by Duncan Simey
Diatoms are microscopic organisms - mainly sea-based, which are now sadly becoming endangered, yet essential to our survival. They produce over 35% of the world’s oxygen supply. Beautiful, primal structures hailing back to the Jurassic era, they are symbols of nature’s cyclical persistence, though threatened by man’s intervention.
Diatom IV
1m diameter
Found and recycled materials
Photo by Duncan Simey
Photo by Duncan Simey
The Diatoms have since been re-sited at different venues including the Art Pavilion lake, London for the Rubbish Art Project, London, 2012
Diatom
Watercolours and ink on hand-made Wookey Hole paper
Diatoms design
Watercolours on hand-made Wookey Hole paper
Diatom made by child participant in family workshop
Man Models himself on Earth, Earth on Heaven
Recycled steel, lead & wire
4.5 metres
Man models himself on Earth, Earth on Heaven. Photo by Max McClure @ Sidcot Arts