Interview
Candace (Candy) Campbell
Award-winning actor, author, filmmaker, and fine artist, Dr. Candace (Candy) Campbell honed her painting skills over many years in traditional art classes and private tutoring with several internationally known artists. Her work has been seen in galleries on the West Coast and recognized in local, regional, and international juried art shows. For several years, Campbell's visual art took a backseat to performance art and writing. However, now that she has attained the status of “recovering academic” she’s picked up the paintbrush again.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“Although I've pursued art since a young age, my first college degree was in Theatre/Acting, As a college-student, I carried my sketch pad everywhere, and when new to a group, used pen and ink portraits as a way to make easy conversation and meet people. After an unsettling experience, I quit acting for over a decade. During this time, I found solace in painting, and won several local and regional art competitions and showcased my work in west coast galleries. Then, life took a turn, and as the sole supporter of the family, I focused on nursing and acting careers. I'm still an actor, and tour with my 3rd solo show, 'Florence Nightingale: The Reluctant Celebrity', but now that I have more time and have retired from nursing, I picked up the brush again! I have been encouraged by so many people who have come to my home and seen my work and asked, ‘Do you sell these?!’ It feels so good to be back in studio, creating new work and launching two new collections.”
What inspires you?
“Any gesture that celebrates life, laughter, a kind gesture, the way the sun plays peekaboo with shadow, just about anything that shows color. I want to capture feelings of love and gratitude for the beauty I see in the world, especially in the faces of people. My influences have mainly been artists like John Singer Sargent, Monet, Manet, and Gustav Klimt, and I've been blessed to have studied with several notable American artists. I guess you'd call my style mainly figurative, although I also paint landscapes and still life, but the subject focus is largely children and animals. I use oils and watercolor.”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“Well, I'm not a conceptual artist, if that's what you're asking. You won't find yourself staring at one of my creations and wondering what it's about. I'm not trying to beat out the other artists with my take on man's inhumanity or rage against any entity. or some deep meaning. Having lived in 6 other countries, I'm thankful to be here in the USA, healthy, and still have my wits about me. I guess I'm a simple person. I just seek to reflect beauty in simple things we see all around us. I know that sounds like a cop-out to some. Artists have a ‘platform,’ after all, but I like to just show gratitude in my work.”
How would you describe your work?
“It's not easy for me to judge my own work - I'm very self-critical. I walk around my house and see little things I'd change in every piece! However, I'll tell you what one fan of my work said: ‘Based on her diverse background, blending art and science, Campbell’s work reflects the precision of a healthcare professional with the expressive freedom of an artist. Each piece reflects her commitment to exploring the human condition, captures her respect for all people, and her love for the beauty of creation. In summary, Campbell’s paintings invite viewers to connect with the stories and emotions that are embedded in each brushstroke.’ (Greg Blais, The Oregonian).”
Which artists influence you most?
“Gustav Klimt, John Singer Sergeant, and of course, Rembrandt, Goya, and all in the impressionist school. I loved studying with Ed Runci, Wm F Reese, Ted Goeschner, Dick Heichberger, Denise Burns, several others.”
“To see without assumptions is perhaps one of the greatest challenges I have faced as an artist. To look deeply, with all my senses, into the abyss and discover rather than define and allow experiences to wash over me.”
What is your creative process like?
“I'm happy to say I don't paint anything I don't like. I start with the way light plays on color or shadow, especially across a face. Maybe that's why I concentrate on people and animals. I love nature and all and I take a lot of photos, but unless I have a specific memory of a place. I go back to people and animals. After I do my best to get photo references, I begin with sketches. Pretty old fashioned that way. Now that I'm older, the sketches are not formal. I'll grab a piece of scratch paper if I don't have a sketch book handy or a paper bag! Then I decide which size/shape of canvas. If it's a commissioned work, I have conversations about the subject, color ideas, where it will likely hang, all the technicality of what I need to do to make it ‘just perfect!’ for that collector. Looking back on how the process developed, I recall when I was in my early 20's, I didn't have a studio, and for 5 years, I was traveling and lived in a few cities in Europe. I loved visiting museums and people-watching, sketching faces and little scenes of human happiness, concern, kindness - that's what I'd like us to concentrate on, not the wars and the disagreements.”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“As I mentioned in roundabout terms, I'm not a reactionary, I'm a peacemaker. Although I admire artwork with a mission to communicate about a social ill, like Picasso's Guernica, that's not my emphasis. I'd rather bring focus back to hearth and home and the values we ascribe to hold. There's so much beauty and good in this world, despite our differences and troubles. Call it ho-hum, but my collectors like artwork they never get tired of looking at in their homes. It reminds them of someone or sometime. It makes them feel good. Therein begins many a discussion over coffee and/or a glass of wine! What is the nature of art? Should it be to bring attention to beauty? Or should it cause us to think deeply about some inequity ? Or puzzle about the meaning of the work? Who knows. As far as art evolving, I think maybe art has gone as far afield as possible with the ridiculousness of some of the ‘conceptual’ work . You know, taping a banana to a board and calling it art, just to bring attention to the banal quality of what artists can get away with in the name of ‘art.’ That's a snarky take on how ‘art’ doesn't require any skill. It's like PT Barnum said, ‘There's a sucker born every minute.’ In my opinion, when artists focus on 'statement' work, the dark, the disturbing, or the evil, that elevates those images. I'd rather bring attention to the light.”
Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?
“I have a small collection of ribbons from years ago when several portraits won recognition as ‘Best Portrait,’ etc. Actually, I've lately entered two international, juried shows and been recognized in both. The first was selected as the poster for a Christmas show, called Xmas, and the second was ranked second in a show with the theme of ‘Melancholy.’”
