Shelley Campbell

Themed Patterns

This is a project that took a number of forms. I used one drawing to create a variety of different works through different technologies - screenprinting, laser-cutting, paper-cutting, video, lino-cutting, stencilling, digitising. The papercut was digitised and it was used for the image in a book jacket design. The book was published in August 2013. The work was also accepted as a contribution to the Drawing In Between Symposium/Exhibition at Cardiff Metropolitan University in July 2013.

Book Jacket Project

While keeping in mind my idea to democratise art, I made versions of 'wallpaper' for this project. Making wallpaper suited this primary aim because it is an object that excludes social, cultural, gender, religious, age and class differences. As home-dwellers, each of us creates the environment in which we inhabit without having to be categorised through these usual class etc., distinctions. I combined urban 'wallpaper' - fly-posters - and domestic 'wallpaper' - stencilling. The fly-posters are screen-printed. I borrowed quotes and graphic details from manifestos, posters and designs created by the Futurists, Dadaists and Fluxus Artists. To protest against the convention of viewing art in gallery and museum settings, I exhibited my piece outside exposed to wind, rain, sleet, sun and all other manner of weather in South Wales. I wanted the content and the structure through which I organised the work to be inter-related. In the gallery space I was allocated for the exhibition, I organised a workshop to stress my commitment to democratising art. I had also made a surplus of posters which I gave away to members of the public who visited the exhibition. The papercut and stencil of the design I used for the project can...