On Behalf of Things

Bradley Ertaskiran is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Montreal-based painter Peter Campbell. While abstraction has often underpinned Campbell’s practice, this new body of work continues his exploration of material, pattern, and form but underscores the act and pleasure of looking. Across the artist’s multifaceted canvases, we see particular attention to, and adoration of, the tangible textures of everyday things: the rounded surface of a pebble, the striated pattern of bark, the glowing silhouettes of foliage in the sun. Through varied paint applications, the artist seeks to coax out the seen and unseen qualities of a thing, or a place, from the mundane to the exceptional, with a palpable sense of praise and wonder.

There is no single system, no one set of tools to create Campbell’s paintings. Every surface is treated differently; whether working on burlap, panel, or aluminum, the artist experiments with paint, gesso, and even wax, building up the materials and scraping them away. The textural results vary from bejewelled and ornamental, to graphic and illustrative, even rough and sculptural. Campbell’s paintings are evidence of the many gestures and layers of materials that make up a thing: living, painted, or otherwise. In Rocks (Belle Cote Beach), swirling, overlapping marks shape a moody rock facade, the narrow crevices and the smooth outer planes sculpted with superimposing textures. The result is a sort of fossilization of the canvas, a fusion of all that came before, which in this case, lends itself well to the geological subject matter; a weathered thing shaped by and understood through brushstrokes. 

In its many forms, Campbell’s mark-making holds an evocative quality. In Backyard, Belle Cote, a cacophony of sharp blue and white lines screech and hum like a windy storm or crashing sea. In Winter Forest, a dense forest meets a barren, snowy foreground, the crackled paint invoking the soft, silent crunch of walking through fresh snow. Campbell also enjoys playing with perspective and scale; sometimes, forms are enlarged and meticulously rendered as if under a microscope, like a tidal pool of crustaceans seen on one canvas, or zoomed out to show a divine and great expanse, like the swaying tree seen from beneath in Interior of a Tree (Parc Lafontaine). The artist sees and translates his environments through rich layers of dashes and dots, through smooth and coarse swathes of paint, which carry the sensorial particularities of the unique creatures, landscapes, and still lifes illustrated. And it is through this deep visual investigation that Campbell proclaims his curiosity and fondness for exploring the world around him; his brush at the helm.

To consult the artist’s profile, please click here.

_{The works are presented in collaboration with Corkin Gallery, Toronto.}