In the creative world, there is a great deal of pressure placed on creatives to produce works of great meaning. After all, art has to be about something, doesn’t it? If the artist has nothing to say, then what is the point? A great many artists struggle against the urge just to paint, sculpt, do vs. what the result of their creativity has to say. Sometimes artists just want to play. Create for the sake of creating, the way California artist Thomas Campbell does.
According to his Artist Statement, when pressed, Campbell will concede that his work is “affirmational in a self-referential sense”. If his work must be about something, perhaps it is about the journey he takes each time he begins anew.
For surely within each creative path an artist embarks upon, there are new and wondrous lessons to be learned. There is always deeper meaning to be found, if we look for it or read such things into the work.
But perhaps in many cases, it is merely a matter of an artist caught in the act of creating. Which is is what makes one an artist in the first place.
If you would like to see more work from this painter, sculptor, photographer, film maker, stuff maker, please visit his website.
Artist found via The Jealous Curator. Images are via the website of Campbell’s representing gallery, Gregory Lind Gallery.