ARTISTIC STATEMENT
SPIRIT CATCHERS: LOVE AND RESISTANCE
LOVE AND RESISTANCE consists of three inter-related series: portraits, street photography and abstract images of the sky.
I use my photojournalistic skills—capturing the “decisive moment”—to create work that warrants closer scrutiny as art. I’m drawn to creating portraits, and I view all portraits as collaborations between me and the person I’m photographing. The more invisible I am, the more visible the people in my portraits become. I don’t use any distancing techniques, no oblique angles, no major manipulation of images. I prefer natural light.
I’m currently working on a Covid Memorial Portrait Series, a continuation of the work I’ve done for decades documenting the people and places that I care about. Several diptychs from this Covid Memorial Portrait Series symbolically trace the trajectory from Grief to Gratitude (as seen in The Way We Remember exhibit at the Wallach Art Gallery).
The portraits and street photography were taken primarily in Harlem and on the South Side of Chicago, the two places I call home.
Most of the abstract images were taken from airplane windows. I began doing this as a comforting distraction, while flying back and forth between New York and Chicago to tend to my father, during a period that unexpectedly turned out to be the final months of his life. These sky images offer the promise of escape. Recently, I’ve started gathering my favorite aerial photographs and short videos to create a new series honoring Bessie Coleman, the first African-American female aviator (1892-1926). Coleman stated: “The sky’s the only place free from prejudice.”
The spirit captured in my portraits is resiliency, defiance, vulnerability, and faith. And yet, haunting my images of triumph and resistance (and from grief to gratitude), there's always the implied struggle against defeat and annihilation. As an artist, I respect and take a disciplined approach to the craft of photography. Beyond aesthetics, as an African-American woman, my photographs are a form a protest and an expression of love.
Cathleen Campbell
BIO
Cathleen Campbell is a photographer and filmmaker. Like everyone else on Planet Earth, she’s currently producing a web series.
Her humorous short film “OUTTA MY NAME” was recently chosen for “Curated by Lil Rel on Kweli-TV. Her film “Langston Hughes’ NO CRYSTAL STAIR” streams on Badami-TV. Both films played in several film festivals. She’s now completing “MAMITA” a one-hour documentary from her Covid Memorial Portrait Series.
Campbell has been photographing Harlem for decades but only recently began exhibiting her work. During those decades, she mainly worked as an independent filmmaker, assisting on numerous productions, later writing and directing her own short films. Her films have been televised nationwide and played in several festivals.
Campbell got her first camera at age 6. She took terrible pictures but loved the whole experience, even if her gifts weren’t understood by others at that time. Her mother always encouraged her interest in the Arts. She introduce her daughter to impressive and supportive artists at the South Side Community Art Center in her hometown of Chicago. Her father gave Campbell her first professional camera at age 14. By age 15, she started to gain recognition as a serious photographer.
After a negative experience in her first photography class as a freshman at Yale, she never took another photography class there. She discovered how important it is to learn outside the classroom.
Campbell doesn’t’ consider herself to be a self-taught photographer, because she’s learned from so many different types of people in so many ways. She’s honed her craft outside academia. She’s learned from everyone who agreed to let her take their picture, from every professional who offered tips, and from everyone who shared feedback on her work.
After putting photography aside for many years to work on films, Campbell’s return to the serious practice of photography was inspired by Curator & Photographer Michael Palma’s open invitation to Uptown photographers in 2014. On a Sunday afternoon stroll, Campbell happened to see a flyer that Palma had posted at 135th and Riverside Drive. Palma’s flyer invited photographers living in Harlem, Washington Heights and Inwood to submit work for an upcoming exhibit, sponsored by the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance. Four of Campbell’s photographs were accepted for that “Selfless Selfies” exhibit, inspiring her to return to her first love of photography. Since “Selfless Selfies” in 2014, Campbell’s work has been included in 17 more exhibits.
RECENT EXHIBITIONS:
Visible/Invisible, Seen/Unseen: Harlem Portraits by Cathleen Campbell (Hamilton Grange Library, NYPL, Extended to March 8, 2024) https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/community-showcases/visibleinvisible-seenunseen-harlem-portraits-cathleen
Wild Style 40, Deitch NY
The Gram Uptown (Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance)
Imagine Repair, Cathedral of St. John the Divine
(for the Zip Code Memory Project)
Dream, Hyde Park Art Center
The Way We Remember, Wallach Art Gallery
West Harlem Arts: Resilience 2021 (Children’s Art Carnival &
Centro Civico Cultural Dominicano)
Women in the Heights: Light/Dark
West Harlem Skills Training Center (First Solo Exhibit)
En Foco Apartment Series
ICONIC: Black Panther, Stony Island Arts Bank
Women in the Heights: Creating for Change
Black Creativity 2019
Artists Choice
FOCUS 2018
Ubuntu, La Maison D’Art (Harlem Arts Festival)
Black Creativity 2017
Selfless Selfies, Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance
Photos Published in The Nation:
https://www.thenation.com/?s=Cathleen+Campbell&post_type=article
Spectrum NY-1 News Story on Current Exhibit:
Shadow and Act profile:
All Images/Photographs ©Cathleen Campbell. Do Not Duplicate, Post or Use Without Permission. All Rights Reserved.