Neil Campbell

Neil Campbell (b. 1958) is a Vancouver artist and educator, having studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Vancouver School of Art and Concordia University (MFA). His practice ranges from wall paintings, photography, light installations and painted and milled steel panels – like Tondo ­– that gesture toward the sculptural. Best known for his often-enormous renderings of simplified geometric shapes featuring circles, rings and parabolas in impenetrable black and violent fluorescent colours, Campbell’s work delivers a strong physiological impact. Despite the flatness of his painted forms, some of which are applied directly to the wall, he creates different perceptual experiences based upon the position of the viewer’s body. In this, Campbell is engaged with an interest in reductive, abstract form but with a desire to make the art object work beyond its formal attributes; a challenge that many artists in Canada and beyond set for themselves. Active in the Canadian art scene since the 1970s, Campbell’s practice references artistic movements that range from conceptualism to minimalism, exploring the physical and more perceptual aspects of viewing. Campbell’s geometric wall paintings and graphic interventions engage directly with their surrounding architecture, provoking an enhanced awareness of their contextual space and how our bodies act within these spaces and in relation to the artworks.