Fragmenting and Rearranging: Art by Bill Campbell
Bill Campbell is an abstract artist whose portfolio and practice centers on the process of enlarging, fragmenting and rearranging existing works or images. The artist’s works often take on the form of large-scale collage artworks, though rather than using recognizable images, Bill takes elements of earlier abstractions and effectively remixes them into new works.
I enjoy the way that Bill’s technique of rearranging forces a new perspective on existing works. By first zooming in on specific elements in the abstract works that he uses, Bill examines the unconscious textures and aesthetics that are produced not by the artist’s hand or intention, but by the nature of the medium itself. Deliberately cropping and rearranging these elements, then, produces an interesting tension between the decisive and the intuitive.
Many of Bill’s works seem to encompass a fairly cohesive colour scheme, as well, with satisfying moments of contrast and almost-recognizable form.
