Myron Campbell ghosts of robert lake vernon public art gallery
myron campbell Ghosts of Robert Lake
Vernon Public Art Gallery October 11 - December 19, 2018
Vernon Public Art Gallery 3228 - 31st Avenue, Vernon BC, V1T 2H3 www.vernonpublicartgallery.com 250.545.3173
Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Vernon Public Art Gallery 3228 - 31st Avenue, Vernon, British Columbia, V1T 2H3, Canada October 11 - December 19, 2018 Production: Vernon Public Art Gallery Editor: Lubos Culen Layout and graphic design: Vernon Public Art Gallery Proofreading: Alexandra Hlynka Cover image: Myron Cambell, Surface of the Lake, 2018, digital painting / collage, 120 x 200 in Photography: Myron Campbell Printing: Get Colour Copies, Vernon, British Columbia, Canada ISBN 978-1-927407-46-2 Copyright Š 2018, Vernon Public Art Gallery All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the Vernon Public Art Gallery. Requests for permission to use these images should be addressed in writing to the Vernon Public Art Gallery, 3228 31st Avenue, Vernon BC, V1T 2H3, Canada. Telephone: 250.545.3173 Facsimile: 250.545.9096 Website: www.vernonpublicartgallery.com The Vernon Public Art Gallery is a registered not-for-profit society. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Greater Vernon Advisory Committee/RDNO, the Province of BC’s Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch, British Columbia Arts Council, the Government of Canada, corporate donors, sponsors, general donations and memberships. Charitable Organization # 108113358RR.
This exhibition is sponsored in part by:
table of CONTENTS
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Executive Director’s Foreword · Dauna Kennedy
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Introduction · Lubos Culen
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The Ghosts of Robert Lake · Michael Boyce
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Artist statement · Myron Campbell
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Images of Works in the Exhibition
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Biography · Myron Campbell
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Executive Director’s Foreword
It is with great pleasure that I write this foreword for the catalogue of Myron Campbell’s exhibition, Ghosts of Robert Lake. While he works predominantly with online interactive animation, Campbell’s exhibition at the Vernon Public Art Gallery features his digital painting collages constructed from numerous visual sources. Despite the somewhat playful appearance of his images, Campbell’s work contemplates serious themes of urban encroachment on our natural habitats. The exhibition’s main theme is the advocacy for the preservation of Robert Lake, located in the Glenmore area of Kelowna. Myron Campbell is an Instructor at the University of British Columbia Okanagan and teaches Drawing and Digital Media in the Visual Arts program. Accompanying the images in this publication documenting Campbell’s exhibition, is a critical essay by Michael Boyce, a Vancouver based author, writer, and editor specializing in digital communications and strategy. I would like to thank our funding partners the BC Arts Council, the Regional District of the North Okanagan, and the Province of BC for enabling us to produce quality exhibitions and publications such as this for our audience in the interior of British Columbia. I’d also like to recognize the staff of the VPAG for their work in bringing together the vision of this exhibition for the public of the North Okanagan. Sincerely, Dauna Kennedy Executive Director Vernon Public Art Gallery
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introduction - Myron Campbell: Ghosts of Robert lake
Myron Campbell’s exhibition Ghosts of Robert Lake is a visual essay addressing concerns about the sensitive environments and unique habitats in the light of the ever-expanding development of urban and rural communities. The motivation to create a series of images that reference what is happening and what might happen in the future to the existence of the small unique pockets of sensitive environments came from his own knowledge of a development of a new road in the vicinity of Robert Lake. Campbell’s exhibition of images is a visual advocacy for those, according to his statement, who cannot speak for themselves. For Campbell, the inspiration to explore the environmental issues at Robert Lake, a small lake in close proximity to the University of British Columbia Okanagan where he works, came from the building of what is now named John Hindle Drive which connects Glenmore Road and Highway 97 in Kelowna, BC. Robert Lake is now a conservation park containing a sensitive environment which acts as a temporary home to a great number of migrating birds. The lake is an example of a dry and salt mud flat in the Central Okanagan, a place with a unique habitat for waterbirds and shorebirds including an endangered American Avocet. Robert Lake is a conservation park owned by the surrounding landowners. There are no trails or roads, only a modest observation kiosk near the lake’s shore. Despite Campbell’s environmental conviction, the exhibition is an expression for careful consideration of “… a balance of human and ecological life.”1 The artwork in the exhibition feels somewhat surreal, perhaps because of juxtapositions which are hard to interpret in a language structure, but they can be ‘felt’. Just like Michael Boyce in his essay, printed in this exhibition catalogue, we are asking questions that are multilayered. They might be at once about the habitat and its inhabitants, trying to understand and reconstruct what transpired in the past, what has been the relationship of the people to the lake that their properties abutt to, what is the rate of urban development, and many more topics particular to environmental stewardship. Campbell’s images depict fauna and flora of Robert Lake, but the images of nature do not invoke a peaceful feeling. Instead, there is a sense of anxiety; that something just does not feel right. Some of the images show ghostly outlines of looming high-rises barely perceptible in the background. In the image titled Chapter XXXVI: Ruddy Duck, a shadowy shape of a commercial airplane passes by a multi-story building. In addition, we do not see the duck’s legs as it perches on what appears to be some sort of commercial pole rising from the lake which is complemented by an image of the end of a drain pipe buried in the gravel. The image titled Chapter XXII: Gyrfalcon is equally
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arresting. It portrays the falcon suspended mid-air, but not flying. It looks as if it was resting on some invisible perch while the tethers of a netting wrapped around the lower part of the falcon’s body are fastened to the ground. Finally, the image titled Chapter XLIV: Yellow-headed Blackbird absolutely defies the logic of the scale. The image shows the bird on the shore of the lake, but on closer inspection, the legs of the bird resemble steep stairways with three black figures ascending and descending. By building these subtle contradictions and shifting scale, Campbell relocates the images from understandable to the imaginary realm of possibilities. Campbell’s images are representational to a great extent, but at the same time they contain their own logic of contradictions. Created with numerous source materials, these digitally created collages do not easily reveal themselves to the viewer. Campbell encoded multiple narratives in every image which requires the viewer to stop and pause and read into the context of every visual proposition. The power of his images have a high propensity to trigger viewers’ associations and a strong emotional response in spite of the initial almost playful appearance. Lubos Culen Curator Vernon Public Art Gallery
Endnote 1
http://notsosimpleton.com/works/ghosts-of-robert-lake/; accessed September 4, 2018
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The Ghosts of Robert Lake by Michael Boyce
This little vulnerable fragile sensitive little lake has no voice. — Myron Campbell The Book This then will have been excerpts from a book that gives voice to Robert Lake. Or, to its ghosts. What, or where, is the book? Its subject reflects on a particular notion of ecology — of a living environment distinct from a human one. Its purpose is to pay homage to a place and to explore a question of balance. We don’t get the whole story here. We don’t get all the answers. We don’t get the full picture. We are presented with select chapters, chosen views, questions, suggestions, considerations, in the form of digital paintings. Chapters from a book, complete unto themselves. It is not the complete book. But the book is not linear. The chapters cross-reference one another. The story, itself, is environmental. Therefore, it may be inferred from any chapter what the nature of the whole story is. The temptation may be to call these paintings plates or illustrations, to ask, where are the words— but we should not do so. These paintings are not a supplement to some unavailable text (some absent voice). They are speaking. The telling is here. The book’s cover is also here. A wrapper for this digest version. It features a topographic map with a critical function: to evoke a complex idea of place, of environment; to trace the course of connecting points; and reveal a conflict. It is a question of access, of mobility. There are multiple places and there are needs for pathways to connect them for travel, for conveyance, for transit, for commuting, and also, for development. There is the subject place: Robert Lake. There is the place setting: the gallery, the room, the floor and the walls; There is the place of transit: bicycle tracks and footprints; There is the place of ghosts. And of course, there is the place of the author. Which side is he on? It is complicated. There is a question of precedent, about development, and about disturbance, environmental disturbance. But the over-all interest, the motive, of this book, is to pay homage and to require balance.
Opposite page: Robert Lake (detail), 2018, Digital Print on Canvas, 200 x 120 in 9
the Chapters / Paintings The paintings evoke a tradition in naturalist art - the background textures are reminiscent of water colours, a classic medium for depicting wildlife scenes. But these textures also suggest other things, impressions of something encroaching upon or receding from this natural scene; ghostly traces of civilization. Are they meant to be foreboding, or do they illustrate a dim recollection of a civilization lost, progress failed? Are these the ghosts of Robert Lake? Although there are some referents of traditional nature imagery, there are other markers more fantastic, outside of the conventions of wildlife painting. It is through this “making strange” of a familiar setting that the story’s voice becomes more evident. It is the evocative feeling of these natural icons that registers this voice. But it is not singular in tone. We can’t help hearing it, at the same time registering some evident despair, but also appreciating the beauty in the decay, admiring the tenacious expression of life, and delighted with the awful absurd juxtaposition of the artificial with the natural. And can we deny, as we look at the cover, that despite a concern with the disturbance of this environment, that there is also an expressed joy of mobility, of biking and walking through this place? In The Beginning (Chapter I John) Like a verse from the bible. Starting with the end. The apocalypse? The beginning after the end? There is hope here—note the tenacious growth from the seemingly dead stump. But there may also be a misunderstanding. One that lies in the relationship between what Myron calls human life and ecological life. Of course, human life is also ecological life. The world is not really separate from us; we make ourselves to be separate from it. Humanity is part of nature. But they are thought about as different and treated as different. In the history of humanity’s development, humanity sought to overcome nature, to conquer it by becoming civilized, but it also idealized a return to nature, to an ideal Garden of Eden, a natural purity. And it partly managed this desire to return by taking on the role of guardian — a godlike custodian or conservationist with a mission to preserve the sanctity of nature. What does it mean to preserve something? Does it mean putting up protective barriers to it? To keep us away from it, to protect it from us? This creates the concept of nature as a purity that
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humanity is responsible to preserve, to protect. But humanity is also responsible for its disturbance to begin with. In fact, this role, this relationship between humanity and nature, could be said to be the occasion that ensures both protection and disturbance. Here in the age of the fourth industrial revolution, it has become positive to speak of disturbance. The signs of progress—development, construction—are ghosted by focusing on the creative process itself. As though we are not so much developing cities and their infrastructures as we are developing our capacity to conceive of new ideas, new abstract forms. But although less substantial, they are still capable of powerful environmental consequence. Here in the Ghosts of Robert Lake, we see the signs of those older more substantial forms, those traditional symbols of progress (buildings, roadways, airplanes), ghosted in the impressionist backgrounds. Are these ghosts the imagined dead of civilization’s progress? Is this a book about the return of Eden after the great wars of the apocalypse? Is it humanity’s return to the garden? I would say, rather, it is a cycle, environmental. Humanity may wish for a return, but it also values the disturbance. We seek to preserve the animals we have threatened with extinction, but we also need to get somewhere. And we are willing to sacrifice the preserve, the habitat, in order to get to the place we are going. The world is not separate from us; we make ourselves to be separate from it. Probably because we make ourselves separate to ourselves. We are all about divisions: mind / body; body / spirit; nature / civilization; us / them. How do we return to Eden if we build barbed wire fences around it? The Creatures John The first creature we see in the book is a man, ”John”, holding a bird’s egg in his hand. You may have learnt the lesson when you were a kid: If you touch a bird’s egg, the mother will reject it from the nest. The man means well, but his commitment to respect and preserve the sanctity of the place is also disturbing its natural balance. John strikes an interesting figure. His clothing a bit stylish, a bit feminine, a combination of urbane with a hint of hippie, standing in the water in bare feet. Perhaps he is a free spirit. But perhaps he also built the barbed-wire fence erected nearby.
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The Governor For contrast, there is another man in the book, “The Governor.” He too stands in the water, but he wears a more traditional suit. There are no ghostly figures in the background of this painting, but there is an absurdly large goose on his shoulder. And there is a falconry glove on his hand. Is this for the goose? Or is the goose also a master of the falcon. Perhaps it is a master of the man? There is a remarkable way that scale is represented in this place, rendered here as though in another world, perhaps a dream. Next to the small group of ducks going by, and the small doorway to a home nestled in an embankment, both The Governor and the goose are absurdly large. The Governor, falconer, goose man, with his masculine markers, falconry glove, professional suit, something like a lawyer/politician/developer might wear, also has feminine markers: a pink shirt, an earring. Is this the site and sign of the balance needed? Is he surveying, guarding, administering? Just where is that falcon, anyway? It appears to be restrained in Chapter XXII (Gyrfalcon). Who’s responsible for that? The Birds Despite the presence of two men, and two other small animals—a badger (Chapter LXXXV) emerging from its hole nearby to some restraining lines (perhaps the ones that hold back the Gyrfalcon in Chapter XXII) gazing up wistfully at a flock of birds (the same ones as in Chapter XCII?), and a coyote (Chapter XV) nursing its own paw near a broken barbed-wire fence with ghostly traces of a roadway overpass and an apartment building in the hazy mountainous horizon. Despite all this, the main creatures, the ones that figure prominently in a lot of Myron’s work, are birds. Myron’s birds. The site and sign, the rise and fall, of gravity and grace. Retribution and redemption. The symbol of free flight. Valorized. In this piece, too. But ironically, that honour is paid by restraining them, grounding them, and occupying them as buildings, floating architecture. Free flight tamed. Is that also the meaning of the ghostly airplane in Chapter XXXVI: Ruddy Duck? Admiration through preservation, where that means mobilizing and controlling them. It is certainly a tragic part of a complex story. Not all the birds in this book are flightless. Not all are disempowered. There are also birds, here, who have their own say in the matter, their own voice. And that may truly be where the balance in this ecology is placed. And In The End (Chapter XCII: Red-Winged Blackbird) This last chapter is transcendent. Again, the birds are in flight. Their ghostly flying presence in chapters heading up to this one (Chapter LXXIX Starlings, Chapter LXXXV Badger), is here rendered clear and plain.
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The ghosts now seem to be out in the open, standing as men in grass near the dried-up lake. All that remains there is salt, which ironically, is traditionally a symbol of friendship. The bulrushes being carried by the bird symbolizes docility. Is this an act of defiance or compliance? Of friendship or resistance? But the bulrush also has a biblical reference — it is where the baby Moses was hidden, and its Egyptian equivalent is papyrus, which the ancients used for writing (it’s root of the word paper). That writing also was done in pictures. And should I also note that the Egyptian god of moon, magic and writing is Thoth, who has the head of a bird (an Ibis, which is a wading bird)? Is this all coincidence? Perhaps. Or the sign of another ghost. Foreboding, forewarning, or foretelling—or a deep distant memory? We must “read” more to learn of it.
Michael Boyce: Bio I am a writer, musician and photographer living in Vancouver BC. I have a PhD in Humanities. I’ve published two novels with Pedlar Press: Monkey and Anderson. I’m working on my new novel, The Supposed Sky. I’m a member of the experimental group Killer Apps. I publish photographs on Instagram, and often use them in short fiction pieces that I publish on Medium. As a lapsed academic, I have an interest in thinking about the social production of culture in ways that are not couched in “art speak” or “critical theory speak”— in order to speak to a broader, and yet still poetically sensitive, audience. I’ve written a number of catalogue pieces for artists. I love to get inside their work and their process to help reveal the beauty, richness and complexity of their perspectives and ideas. I embrace contradiction.
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artist statement
Voice is a quality that is normally recognized in literary works, but I cultivate it in my stories even though the medium is visual. Every medium has its own grammar, its own form of literacy. Just as an author of a novel seeks their own voice, so too do I search for my voice within my visual narratives. I create with the belief that visual media is distinct from literary media, and that the specific medium I work in also is distinct from such hybrid visual/literary forms as comics, movies and cartoons. I seek to use a form of narrative that is peculiar to my medium, which is collage and digital painting, using mixtures of two and three- dimensional elements, with various interdisciplinary components. The stories that I tell lean toward the mythological as a nod to a tradition and as an exploration of both memories and dreams. Collage is quite important as a creative choice because this process allows to construct and then to deconstruct and then to reconstruct an image in a way that resembles the course of an appearance and then interpretation and then depiction of both dreams and memories. This is partly for the sake of taking aspects of my history that are constitutive of my personality and creative sensibility, and making my own mythic fables of transformation out of them. These mythical vignettes are meant to both reveal a quirk that’s individual, and to implicate the viewer/user into a kind of a relationship of consequence with the work. Because of their interpretative openness, visual fables have the capability to go beyond my own intention, and I welcome that as evidence of it gaining its own spirit, becoming like a totem, its own self-determined entity, which then can implicate me just as much as any member of the audience and displace some sense of my propriety and gain freedom from a part of my control as the creator. In this way I hope that I at least can be engaged or entertained, if not humbled, by my own creation. The idea, then, is to create works of art that become their own creation, just as the children that we make become their own persons. Myron Campbell
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images of works in the exhibition
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Chapter I: John, 2017, Digital Print on Falconboard, 70 x 45.5 in
Chapter X: Great Horned Owl, 2017, Digital Print on Falconboard, 70 x 45.5 in
Chapter XV: Coyote, 2017, Digital Print on Falconboard, 70 x 45.5 in
Chapter XXII: Gyrfalcon, 2017, Digital Print on Falconboard, 70 x 45.5 in
Chapter XXXVI: Ruddy Duck, 2017, Digital Print on Falconboard, 70 x 45.5 in
Chapter XLIV: Yellow-headed Blackbird, 2017, Digital Print on Falconboard, 70 x 45.5 in
Chapter LIV: The Governor, 2017, Digital Print on Falconboard, 70 x 45.5 in
Chapter LXXI: American Avocet, 2017, Digital Print on Falconboard, 70 x 45.5 in
Chapter LXXIX: The Invaders, 2017, Digital Print on Falconboard, 70 x 45.5 in
Chapter LXXXV: Badger, 2017, Digital Print on Falconboard, 70 x 45.5 in
Chapter XCII: Red-winged Blackbird, 2017, Digital Print on Falconboard, 70 x 45.5 in
curriculum vitae Myron Campbell solo exhibitions 2017 Ghosts of Robert Lake, Kelowna Art Gallery @ YLW, Kelowna, BC Distant Air Esplanade Arts & Heritage Centre, Medicine Hat, AB Group Exhibitions 2013 THE WRONG: A NEW DIGITAL ART BIENNALE – WONDER CABINET OF THE BIG ELECTRIC CAT, thewrong.org – wondercabinetofthebigelectriccat.com 2012 Masters Degree Exhibition, Charles H. Scott Gallery, Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Vancouver, BC 2010 National Portrait Gallery, Latitude 53, Edmonton, AB 2010 Twitter/Art Social Media, Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver, BC 2009 Fire In The Sky, Regional Cultural Centre, Letterkeny, Co. Donegal, Ireland 2005-07-08 FILE – Electronic Language International Festival, Rio De Janeiro & Sao Paulo, Brazil 2008 HQ turns 2!, Galerie + Boutique Headquarters, Montréal, QC 2008 WAFA Group Show 01: An Exercise in Patience, WAFA Studios, Seattle, WA, USA 2007 Bravo!Fact Screening, High Performance Rodeo, Calgary, Alberta 2005 Lumen Eclipse: Harvard Square Showcase 02, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA 2005 ZOOROOM: “A Room With A Zoo”, Resister Gallery, Toronto, ON 2005 Trace, Clothworthy Arts Centre, Antrim, Northern Ireland Education and Training 2010-12 Emily Carr University of Art & Design, Masters Degree in Media Arts 1999-01 Medicine Hat College, Diploma, Visual Communications 1999 University of Regina, Independent Studies: Fine Arts Work Experience 2014-present 2000-present 2010-2014 2008-09 2002-05
Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies – UBC Okanagan, Vancouver, BC Notsosimpleton Productions, Freelance Animator, Illustrator, Designer Senior Instructor – Vancouver Film School, Vancouver, BC Art Director – Switch United, Vancouver, BC Lead Designer – Horizon Zero, Banff, AB
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Awards / Grants / Residencies 2012 Winner – Governor General’s Gold Medal, Emily Carr University of Art + Design Vancouver, BC 2010 Winner – Best Interactive Designer in Canada, Canadian New Media Awards Toronto, ON 2010 Winner – Illustration Category – Applied Arts, Interactive Installation – The Digital Gateway, Canada 2007-08 Nominee – Best Designer, Canadian New Media Awards, Toronto, ON 2007 International Digital Residency, Queen Street Studios, Belfast, Northern Ireland 2006 New Media Project Grant, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Distant Air – Interactive Animation 2006 Bravo!Fact Video Grant, Bravo!Fact, Throw It On A Fire – Music Video 2005 Runner Up – netarts.org Grand Prize, Internet Art Exhibition – The Fragile Circus Machida, Tokyo 2005 3rd Place winner – Art / Experimental – VIDFEST, Internet Art Exhibition – The Fragile Circus, Vancouver, BC 2005 Winner – Original Sound, Flash Forward Film Festival – NY, Interactive Animation – The Flowering of Forgotten Gifts 2004 Winner – New Media Mention Award – FCMM, Interactive Animation – The Fragile Circus, Montréal, QC Presentations PANEL - MAKING A LIVING AS AN ARTIST - Kelowna Art Gallery, Kelowna, BC – 2015 PANEL - DRAWING - Kelowna Art Gallery, Kelowna, BC – 2015 PANEL - INTERACTIVE NARRATIVE ROUNDTABLE - Interactive Screen 0.7 – The Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity, Banff, AB – 2007 PANEL : ANIMATION ON THE WEB - KAFI – Kalamazoo Animation Festival International – Kalamazoo, MI – 2007 LECTURE - MAKE SOMETHING UGLY: AN EXPERIMENTAL CREATIVE PROCESS - FITC – Future. Innovation. Technology. Creativity – Amsterdam, Netherlands – 2014 - HPX Digital – Halifax Pop Explosion – Halifax, NS – 2013 - FITC – Future. Innovation. Technology. Creativity – Toronto, ON – 2013 - Codemotion – Rome, Italy – 2013 - ITC – Future. Innovation. Technology. Creativity – Vancouver, BC – 2012
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ARTIST TALK - DISTANT AIR - FILE – Electronic Language International Festival – Rio De Janeiro, Brasil – 2008 - Esplanade Arts & Heritage Centre – Medicine Hat, AB – 2007 - Queen Street Studios – Belfast, Northern Ireland – 2007 - Datarama – The Star And Shadow Cinema – Newcastle, United Kingdom – 2007 ARTIST TALK – THE FRAGILE CIRCUS - Flash n’ Splash – The Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity, Banff, AB– 2005 - BD4D conference – Henry Art Gallery – Seattle, WA, USA – 2003 - Interactive Screen 0.3 – The Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity, Banff, AB – 2003
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