Clayton Campbell

Artist Statement- ONE SHOT : [SPACES] Inside, Outside and The Space Between

The work I do as an artist using photography deals with the intentional corruption of digital imagery so they become a departure point for visual opportunities not possible in the original image.

What I mean by this is that I like to mess it up and work with what other people think of as mistakes. I’m an artist who uses photo shop to create fictional narratives. I most often have people in my finished works, and they are there to tell some kind of story that relates to our times, the issues of our day, and the emotional and spiritual states of mind we pass through.

Formally, I go “inside” the digital jpg file by opening up its code and reprogramming it to “corrupt”. I scramble the information, and when I re-open the file as a jpg it breaks apart into shards and bands of information, creating an abstraction of the original. This process is very much like the ‘controlled accidents’ of action painters like Jackson Pollock that I learned as a boy. And so I am using the same methodology, randomness with intention.

I use the corrupted image as a background, and then work on top of it layering in colors, brushwork and other images. In this show, I have chosen works that are challenging. The two large photographs are appropriated from the Abu Ghraib torture photos made by United States military personnel. The other works are slide shows of images from my series Sex in California: Parts 1 through 8”. These pornographic images were appropriated from primetime Cable TV on major networks.

Both images are highly sexualized and their juxtaposition, if you don’t know the titles, are almost interchangeable. Viewers will have different experiences based on their own moral compass. The Abu Ghraib photos are almost pleasing to look at but are derived from truly corrupted pictures of torture on unwilling victims. Because they are abstracted I try to seduce the viewer back into the often ignored human rights discussion by not showing the actual image that is too easy to become numb to and dismiss. The pornography shown on nightly TV becomes more erotic and perhaps pleasing to look at when corrupted, and often involve people who are willing to be in those positions, no pun intended. Between Abu Ghraib and Sex in California, the links between sex, violence, pleasure, exploitation and abuse are all there to be reflected upon.”