Rebecca Campbell (2017)

A little breath that always goes the distance longing requires

November 3—December 7, 2017

PROGRAMS AND EVENTS

Preview: Thursday, November 2 (Art Hop), 5—8 pm

  • Remarks by Elena Harvey Collins and Susana Sosa at  5pm
  • Opening night and artist talk Friday, November 3, 5-8 pm, in the Art Space Gallery (AH101)
  • Artist talk: 6 pm, Recital Hall, Music and Speech Building (MS132)

All events are Free and open to the public.

Jessica WimbleyRebecca Campbell, Jessica Wimbley, 2016 from the series You Are Here, acrylic on paper, 30 x 22 1/4 inches. © Rebecca Campbell. Courtesy of L.A. Louver, Venice, CA.

 

AlexandraRebecca Campbell, Alexandra Grant2015, from the series You Are Here, acrylic on paper, 30 x 22 1/4 inches. © Rebecca Campbelll. Courtesy of L.A. Louver, Venice, CA.

 

Carlee Rebecca Campbell, Carlee Fernandez, 2015, from the series You Are Here, acrylic on paper, 30 x 22 1/4 inches. © Rebecca Campbell. Courtesy of L.A. Louver, Venice, CA.

 

With a practice encompassing painting, sculpture, and installation, Los Angeles based artist Rebecca Campbell (1971, Salt Lake City, Utah) explores the complexity of identity and the nature of memory. a little breath that always goes the distance longing requires brings together several recent projects by Campbell, which interweave ongoing concerns of the artist: gender inequality in its many forms; how to contend with the gifts and burdens of family inheritance; and the subtle ways the places we are from reside in the body.

Since 2015, Campbell has asked women working in all areas of the arts to sit for her. The resulting series, You Are Here (2015—present) is quietly confrontational, addressing gender inequity in the art world. Two new portraits are on view at Fresno City College for the first time.

Campbell grew up in a strict Mormon family in Salt Lake City, Utah, and her upbringing and subsequent departure from the church as a young adult remains a site of continued research and process. Included in the exhibition are several works from The Potato Eaters (2013-2016), in which she mines family photographs as source material. Alongside this series, the exhibition debuts two new sculptural installations incorporating light, sound, and family documents—letters, concert ticket stubs, family tartan— reproduced and printed on silk, to produce a shifting, layered terrain.

The idea that the places we come from are always and inescapably present in ourselves, however subtly, is resonant in Fresno—a city and region thoroughly identified with the land. As a nod to this common thread, and the power of places that exist at both the periphery and middle, the title of the exhibition is taken from the poem “Oklahoma,” by Fresno born poet, Larry Levis.

Rebecca Campbell (1971, Salt Lake City, Utah) earned an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2001, and a BFA from the Pacific Northwest College of Art (Portland, OR), in 1994. Selected solo exhibitions include Rebecca Campbell: You Are Here, L.A. Louver, Venice, CA; The Potato Eaters, Lancaster Museum of Art and History, CA (both 2016); and Seeing is Believing: Rebecca Campbell and Angela Ellsworth, Phoenix Art Museum (2011). Her work has been included in numerous group exhibitions, including Rebecca Campbell and Samantha Fields: Dreams of Another Time, University Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach, CA (2016); States of Being, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA (2015), and Sargent's Daughters, Sargent's Daughters, New York (2014). She is an awardee of the Pittsburgh Foundation’s Eben Demarest Trust Fund Award, and her work is held in numerous public collections, including Brigham Young University, Provo, UT and the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ. Campbell is an Assistant Professor of Art at California State University, Fullerton, CA. She lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.