CLAYTON CAMPBELL

Posted on June 14, 2012 by unit24

For 24Design, Clayton Campbell has created a unique limited edition of his series of photographs “Belonging and Not Belonging” presented in a signed and numbered digital photo frame.

‘My most recent series of photographs is entitled “Belonging and Not Belonging” (Interloping). They are fictional, narrative tableau that insert people from diverse social economic and cultural backgrounds into various environments which they temporarily navigate but ultimately find alien and uncomfortable, and which serve to highlight their visible differences. It is something all of hale felt at one time or another.

My work, through storytelling, makes explicit the power relations inscribed in our social system, where an individual’s position in the world is largely determined by their socioeconomic and cultural status. The symbolic and cultural capital embedded in public spaces and cultural institutions are similarly encoded and reflect a rigid set of rules that govern behavior and limit access. These are the sites that become the stages in my “Belonging and Not Belonging” (Interloping) series and the issues that my protagonists face revolving around unjust exclusionary distinctions based on race, class and economics.

The other goal in my artwork is to make images that are pictorially imaginative, contemplative for the collector, and gorgeous to look at.

In 2012-13 I will have exhibitions at the Three Shadows Photography Art Center in Beijing; the International Center of Contemporary Art, Bucharest; Pratt Institute of Design, New York; the Exploratorium, San Francisco; and Unit 24 Gallery in London. My recently published a POD book, Context Clayton Campbell: 40 Years of Photo Based Art, may be purchased directly through my website: www.claytoncampbell.com

Antoher work by Calayton Campbell displayed in Unit24 Gallery is “Sex in California” – a limited edition of 12 erotic photographs that are housed in a digital picture frame which displays the eroticism in a slow slide show. Instead of the pornography that is produced in California, Campbell has abstracted these  and re-contextualized them into sexy, erotic images that pass the smell test of whether it is art, or pornography. And Art it is indeed. Designed to stimulate the senses, through shapes and color, ” Sex in California: Part One” is a must for those of you who like sex and are not afraid of it.