Jennifer Campbell

Home: Ottawa, Ontario
Title: After the Flood
Media: Oil on canvas / huile sur toile
Dimensions: 91.5 x 152.5 cm
Website: jracampbell.com

After The Flood is based on a work by Norval Morrisseau titled The Legend of Fish People at the Great Flood. It depicts a family paddling into the future in a mythological canoe after a new earth was formed by a great flood. I am interested in the symbolism of the canoe as a carrier of myth and memory, a metaphor for community and life’s journey.

After the Flood is influenced by the bold, highly detailed domestic portraits by colonial folk artists. Largely self-taught, these early itinerant portraitists brought the individual into sharp focus with the use of crisp linearity and juxtaposition of the artificial with solid reality. I am drawn to the intimacy of these portraits which were intended for domestic settings. I work slowly and methodically, building up colours in thin, translucent glazes. I concentrate on surface details to accentuate the artifice of the painted image so the viewer pauses at the threshold of illusion.

EDUCATION:
Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, B.A. Honours, Art History (fourth year), Two-time recipient of L. D. Burnett Memorial Award scholarship in 2006 and 2007

1995-2005 Ottawa School of Art, Ottawa,ON
1997-2000 Bishops University, Lennoxville, QC, B.A. Sociology

EXHIBITIONS:
June 2009 The New Art Festival, Ottawa, ON
April 2009 Group show Fresh Juice, La Petite Mort Gallery, Ottawa, ON
March 2009 Finalist in Emerging Artists 2009, Limner Gallery, Hudson, NY
February 2009 Solo exhibition New Paintings, La Petite Mort Gallery, Ottawa, ON
October 2007 Finalist in The Kingston Prize 2007, Gananoque, ON