[Many thanks to Veerle Poupeye (Critical.Caribbean.Art) for bringing this item to our attention.] Jamaican-born visual artist Charles Campbell is the recipient of the 2022 Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation for the Visual Arts VIVA Award. Jamaicans.com reports:
Charles Campbell, a visual artist born in Jamaica, is the winner of the 2022 Jack and Doris Shadbolt Prize for the Visual Arts VIVA, which carries with it a grant of $15,000. Campbell is a Fernwood-based painter, sculptor and performance artist who has worked in multiple disciplines for nearly 30 years. At age 52, race and climate change are his most critical current motifs in his art making.
In an interview with Vancouver Island Free every day, Campbell noted that the world right now feels like “things are shutting down,” adding that the world is living through an ecological tragedy and a segmentation of groups. He seeks to reclaim a sense of possibility in the world through his art and help others gain a broader perspective. Campbell believes his art involves capturing the experiences he and other black/radicalized people have and understanding how they can help everyone navigate the future. He said the history of black people required cultures to be reinvented and people to move forward. He added that the history of slavery with its brutality and attempts to eliminate black social structures and personality required a kind of “cultural ferment” that allowed people to “reconstruct” themselves.
Campbell moved with his family from Jamaica to Prince Edward Island when he was five years old. However, he wanted to reconnect with his Jamaican heritage and returned to the island after earning a degree in fine arts from Montreal’s Concordia University. His interest in issues of race and identity while in art school forced him to reconnect with his “Jamaicanness.” He stayed in Jamaica for five years to pursue a master’s degree at Goldsmiths College in London and spent five years there. He then moved to Vancouver Island before returning to Jamaica for another two years during which time he worked as chief curator at the National Gallery of Jamaica.
His interest in Jamaican history, particularly that of slavery and how its colonial past affects social dynamics and problems with violence today, and his art helps him explore and expand these ideas. He always asks himself, “How did we end up here?” He thinks that, in Canada, facts such as the nation’s foundation originating from the genocide of indigenous populations are “erased,” but in Jamaica it is harder to argue that its economic foundations were anything other than slavery.
His time at Goldsmiths introduced him to performance art, which brought more focus and attention to his dedication to depicting Caribbean history, which was too easily omitted in his paintings. He continued to paint while exploring performance and sculpture through a character from a Jamaican folk festival called “Jonkonnu”. He created a character called “Actor Boy” from a utopian future and asked him “How did we get here”. [. . .]
For the full article, go to https://jamaicans.com/jamaican-born-artist-based-in-canada-wins-visual-arts-award/
[Photo above by Mark Mushet.]
