Artist Research 2 - Jim Campbell

Jim Campbell works with LED instillation and sculpture. Although he says little about himself or his work on his website, he seems to take his inspiration from pixel art and grid systems. Many of his works are simply small lights making a simple pattern on a larger canvas, which I personally find very charming. I personally find pictures much more interesting when they're made out of something weird, yet still get across the same image to the audience. Some of these light pieces apparently show moving video (even though on his website none of these pieces actually move and I couldn't find any actual footage) which makes the pieces even more interesting. Seeing how he worked in film before he moved on to his own art, his sculptures give me a bit of an old music video feel. Something about the effects of the materials mixed with the actual moving pictures reminds me of the silly mtv music videos with a million effects attached to them. It's charming.

Some of his other artwork, such as his paintings, are entirely blurred shapes or motion lines that only look like a coherent image if you squint at them. Even though, objectively, these images just look likes a mess of lines and color, the thought process behind them is rather interesting. I see so many artists who focus on making things look realistic and fully immersible, so to see someone care so little about that concept and focus on the bare minimums of what make an art piece recognizable is amusing. Plus, one of his artworks looks like a blur effect you'd see in a program like photoshop or illustrator, which seems like it'd be a pain to actually replicate through the actual medium of paint. It's clear that he puts a lot of work into his pieces, even if they don't look like the types of things that would please most high-brow art enthusiasts. (Although I could be wrong about that, seeing as his entire biography is nothing but a list of awards and shows he's done.)

http://www.artnet.com/artists/jim-campbell

This may be a stupid reason to like an artwork, but his Repixelated 2 sculpture caught my eye mostly because of the colors used. I'm always a sucker for blues and purples and pinks mixed together. Plus, the blockyness makes me want to reach out and stick my hand on it to feel the differences in depth. I don't really think he'd appreciate that, though.