Opening Reception with artist on Saturday, June 6 from 3-5 p.m. CT
Virtual Artist Talk: Thursday, June 11 from 1 p.m. CT | https://usi.zoom.us/j/92919262333
Figure/Ground
Map/Terrain
Appearance/Disappearance
Field/Event
The New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art proudly presents 鈥淕round Figures,鈥� a solo exhibition of work by Chicago-based artist Sheldon-Till Campbell. Working in a drawing-based practice, the artist considers the scale and phenomenological experience of the New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art as a site for expansion and artistic exploration. With a concentrated focus on surface as a medium through which interruptions can be explored as 鈥渆vents鈥� 鈥攕uch as wrinkles, shadows and intentional indentations鈥擳ill-Campbell takes his practice further into a direction of durational observation in this meditative solo show.
Works on view span sculpture, painting, works on paper and artist books. Visitors to the exhibit鈥攚hich activates both the main gallery and the BG Projects space鈥攚ill witness the artist鈥檚 process and the resulting work, indicating Till-Campbell鈥檚 focus on, 鈥渜uietness, slow shifts and accumulation cycles of growth and decay, lightness of touch, waiting for a spark of something to emerge.鈥� Taking the gallery itself as a starting point, Till-Campbell seeks to subtly nudge the visitor toward a site-specific sense of self-discovery that meanders, as the artist observes, 鈥渢oward the viewer鈥檚 awareness of their own perception in the gallery space.鈥�
The apparent sparseness of the artist鈥檚 work results from the close attention Till-Campbell pays to the environment and to the aspects of care embedded within his process-oriented art practice, reinforcing the artist鈥檚 intent for the exhibit. 鈥淢y vision for this show is for it to be a poetic meditation on this back-and-forth oscillation between sense perception and abstractly structured attempts to understand a place and time,鈥� Till-Campbell reflects. This sentiment echoes John Berger鈥檚 reflections on awareness in his essay 鈥楩IELD鈥� (for the publication, 鈥楢bout Looking,鈥�) in which he offers this poetic vision of how we experience events in our consciousness: 鈥淯sually, the event draws your attention to the field, and, almost instantaneously, your own awareness of the field then gives a special significance to the event.鈥� In Till-Campbell鈥檚 dogged pursuit of the ineffable in tangible space, he evinces the impact that artists such as Byron Kim, Vija Celmins and Frederic Edwin Church have had on this practice as they open windows into observation: encountering, capturing and framing. 鈥楪round Figures鈥� allows Till-Campbell to create a framework that eludes easy capture but that establishes the field of play for visitors ready to encounter this ineffable, inextricably linked set of works in 鈥楪round Figures.鈥�
About Sheldon Till-Campbell
Sheldon Till-Campbell (b.1993, Kansas City, MO) is a Chicago-based artist whose work is grounded in quiet, receptive practices of walking, observational drawing, and formal play. These practices slowly generate abstractions that wrestle with perception, scale, transformation, and ethical questions related to attention. Sheldon鈥檚 work has been shown in Chicago at Gallery 400, Comfort Station, and The Plan, and in many shows across the Midwest. He has been artist in residence at the John Michael Kohler Art center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and exhibited internationally at Miniprint, Oaxaca, Mexico, and Gallery 350, Mal茅, the Maldives. Sheldon鈥檚 performance and curatorial work explores structured conversation as a mode of critical, relational making. He has curated exhibitions for The Plan in Chicago and The Ortlip Gallery at Houghton University. Sheldon holds a BA in studio art from Wheaton College, and an MFA from the University of Illinois, Chicago
Lead image: Sheldon Till-Campbell, 鈥淒rift鈥� carved and sanded birch panel, (2023) 12 x 16鈥�
1. John Berger, About Looking (London: Bloomsbury Paperbacks, 2015). 203.
New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art at 黑料吃瓜 promotes discourse about and access to contemporary art in the southern Indiana region. New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art is a proud outreach partner of the 黑料吃瓜 as part of Historic New Harmony.
The gallery is grateful for the continued support of the Efroymson Family Fund for ensuring continuation of our exhibitions and programming, with additional funding provided for arts educational activities by funds administered from the Indiana Arts Commission, which receives support from the State of Indiana and the National Endowment for the Arts.
