The270 will continue spotlighting artist even though part of the appeal for artist was to have free print advertisements. As you know, C-Bus Magazine, the magazine I advertised with, ceased publication recently. Anyways, I would still like to support the Columbus Arts Community any way I can. Thus, the continuation of the Artist Spotlight.

Today, we feature Todd Camp. Todd was kind enough to share his art and write a statement, which is reprinted below. The art you see in this post can be found at the Hayley Gallery in New Albany, Ohio.

Artist Statement

Four miles off the main road, over several hills and nestled in a valley sits a small farm I call home. There, a quiet and profound landscape unfolds and inspires the soul. “Landscape at the farm” is a new series of paintings that is inspired by the farm and a welcomed departure from my strictly abstract work of recent years. The influence of my surroundings on my work is apparent since moving to rural Eastern Ohio one year ago. I am reacting to the qualities of light & shadow, color & atmosphere that have presented themselves to me and are directing my eye toward the landscape.

Interestingly, these paintings are about the act of painting more than ever before. Use of an intentional color pallet in a conscious manner is quite different for me. In other works, the act of creating emotion through non-objective shape or color intuitively was of most importance. In comparison, my current work allows me to closely observe the immediate surroundings at the farm where I live and work and catalog those daily visions qualifying the observations as my subject matter. Previous work has been dependent upon memories from travel and scattered recollections and impressions of scenes, colors, sights and smells that were then interpreted into art long after the return from the journey without much use of photography.

Now, photography has found it’s way back in to my work. I capture a moment in time with the camera and then rely on my memory of the scene to embellish it considerably from the resulting photograph. Instead of setting up my easel in the field and painting rapidly and directly from nature I choose to use the photograph to provide me information back in the studio to work from.

The photograph is enlarged and collaged in an integrating fashion to become the focal point of the painting because of its inherent realistic qualities. Thus, I strive to create visual tension between what is real and what is painted and challenge the viewer to seek it out. The use of the photograph in these works isn’t purely documentary and so the resulting painting is an expressive interpretation of an existing landscape. The resulting paintings are several steps from reality but are a reflection of how I see the land. They exude a warm peacefulness that I have found here at the farm. The color pallet I’ve chosen for this series is that of winter hues. Seasonal changes, weather and times of day affect the entire emotional feel of each piece.

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