Thursday, September 26, 2019

Hope Harrison's words

Adah Rose Gallery's former intern and now UVA student Hope Harrison wrote these very cool words about one of my pieces - from my Obsessive Drawings series...

“Suddenly She Wasn’t Afraid Any Longer” F. Lennox Campello, 2016 Charcoal on Paper In the Hope Harrison Collection
“Suddenly She Wasn’t Afraid Any Longer”
F. Lennox Campello, 2016 Charcoal on Paper
In the Hope Harrison Collection
A woman leaping in a white void, with arms up, legs outstretched, and a tan line on her butt fully exposed in a moment of glory. This individual may be part dancer and part warrior, but, surely, she is fearless. Indeed, the bronzed figure in mid-leap seems to distill all freedom and courage within her, as she dynamically flies on the paper. The space around this figure is left to the imagination of the viewer; the woman may be jumping off a cliff and into a lake, or she may be plunging into the depths of space, her mind, or a vast unknown. All space and time collapse into this one figure, a form that is faceless yet ubiquitous in the sense that we may all hope to feel a similar same sense of liberation, be it from mental, physical, or extraneous challenges that may limit us.


F. Lennox Campello’s 2016 piece, “Suddenly She Wasn’t Afraid Any Longer”, is a figurative drawing made with charcoal. In the presence of larger or more colorful works, this piece in theory could hang on a wall inconspicuously; however, the contrast and surprising sense of depth that Campello creates by placing such an active and expressive figure in a nonexistent, and therefore stagnant, background is striking. The stylistic decisions made for this piece, which is relatively simplistic for Campello’s work, emphasize line and form in a singular way.
Hope Harrison
UVA 2020