Tribute to Steven Campbell

It was with regret that I read that one of Scotland’s most famous artists died recently. Steven Campbell attended the Glasgow School of Art at the same time as me, though a couple of years ahead, and I often saw him striding around the building. He was a unique and very powerful figure whose uncompromising work was a visual feast informed by the artists’ ferocious literary knowledge, e.g. Edgar Allen Poe was a favourite inspiration, and which achieved international acclamation. His work is in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Tate Gallery amongst others. He won a Fulbright Scholarship on leaving the GSA in 1982 and headed for New York where he immediately introduced himself to Andy Warhol. His work, painted in a neo expressionistic style, was a mixture of the character and stories he read about mixed with his own demons and sprinkled with witty visual puns, all done on an heroic scale. It was a carrier cut short at the age of 53 and his influence on the art scene, particularly in Scotland, will be sorely missed especially since his style of work has now become in vogue again with master painters such as Neo Rauch and others in the Leipzig School now dominating the painting scene.  

Esoteric Artist

As you may know already, my work is influenced by more esoteric subject matter, subject matter which is now being scientifically proven. More specifically, I’m interested in the idea of vibration, that the whole universe and everything in it, including the chair you’re sitting in, is vibrating to a certain frequency. What is even more interesting is that the things we don’t see are also vibrating at a certain frequency. These are our thoughts and the rate of vibration varies according to our thoughts. In short, positive thoughts have a stronger frequency than negative ones. When we think positive thoughts we create a positive energy and this is what we end up getting back into our lives. So if you want things to go your way in life then start thinking in a more positive way! For more info check out www.creatingpower.com 

Commitment to modern abstract  art
A sincere artist is not one who makes a faithful attempt to put on to canvas what is in front of him, but one who tries to create something which is, in itself, a living thing.

My paintings are a language which cannot be replaced by another medium.  I don’t know what to say about what I paint, except the 'laws of attraction' govern the universe.

You come to nature with all her theories, and she knocks them all flat, but in order to command nature you must FIRST learn to obey nature.