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Breakout Artists 2015: Chicago’s Next Generation of Image Makers

April 30, 2015 at 9:00 am by Matt Morris

by Matt Morris
April 30, 2015April 30, 2015Filed under:
  • Artist Profiles
  • Breakout Artists
Portrait of Jessica Campbell from the "Boulevard Dreamers" series curated by Kirsten Leenaars and Lise Haller Baggesen, 2014 Photo: Michelle Geoga

Portrait of Jessica Campbell from the “Boulevard Dreamers” series curated by Kirsten Leenaars and Lise Haller Baggesen, 2014/Photo: Michelle Geoga

Jessica Campbell

Looking at Jessica Campbell’s artwork makes you want to be friends with the person who created it. Humor and a meticulous, joyful aesthetic are the defining characteristics of her sprawling practice. The recent SAIC MFA grad makes zines, drawings, paintings, rugs, jokes and performances all while running Kavi Gupta’s bookstore and aspiring to be Jack Handey. Her blog is a black hole of hilarity in the form of original illustrations, links and general observations about life in what Campbell calls “Canada’s pants” (America).

Campbell denotes the prevalence of comedy in visual art as endemic to both Chicago and her native Canada. She writes, “I wonder if some of the interest in comedy might come from a second-city complex—Chicago has this, of course, but I feel like Canada kind of has it, too, as a country. Like, Montreal has a rivalry with New York that only Montreal knows about, and maybe there is some humor, a self-deprecating humor, in always being worried about stacking up against bigger and richer places.” She sites a lineage of local mentors including Phil Hanson and José Lerma while also noting the influence of fellow Canadians Shary Boyle, Adrian Norvid and Daniel Barrow; she describes her work as “fitting into [this] established Canadian drawing ecosystem.” Canadians, like Chicagoans, Campbell tells me, love collaboration, thus her involvement with several local groups including Brain Frame (RIP) and the comics collective Trubble Club.

Jessica Campbell. "Teen Room," 2014,  inkjet print, acrylic rug, ink on paper, 5' x 6' x 3'

Jessica Campbell. “Teen Room,” 2014,
inkjet print, acrylic rug, ink on paper, 5′ x 6′ x 3′

Campbell currently serves as the publications and programming director for Kavi Gupta. In this role, she runs Editions (Gupta’s bookstore) in addition to designing and producing the gallery’s catalogues, coordinating programming and hosting the KGG book club. She writes of the synergy between her job and studio practice, “I totally hate the idea of ‘living artfully,’ because to me that implies that you can’t have a big pile of laundry on your floor or sleep in too late or have a big hole into an unknown void in your bathroom floor like I did in my last apartment, but I’m thankful that some of my wage-labor job can be enmeshed with my artistic life.” Campbell has an upcoming exhibition with Etta Sandry at Roots and Culture. The works she’ll be showing are meditative and elaborate black and white explorations of themes and imagery from adolescent girlhood. Expect pieces akin to “Reading is Sexy,” a particularly charming work which shows a nude male reading in repose, displayed in tandem with a nineties-style patchwork rug. Campbell calls it the poster she wished she had on her wall as a kid. (Erin Toale)

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Tagged:
  • 96 Acres
  • Adrian Norvid
  • Adrian Piper
  • Alexandria Eregbu
  • Alfredo Salazar-Caro
  • Alistair Matthews
  • Art Basel Miami
  • Art Farm 2
  • Arts Incubator
  • Ballroom Projects
  • Ben Okri
  • Black Girl In Om
  • Brain Frame
  • Chicago Artists Coalition
  • Chicago Cultural Center
  • Chicago Tribune
  • Chloe Seibert
  • Chris Edwards
  • Chris Meerdo
  • Claire's
  • Columbia College
  • Contemporary Art Daily
  • Cook County Jail
  • Corbett vs. Dempsey
  • Creative Capital
  • Daniel Barrow
  • Danny Volk
  • Dreamboat
  • Elise Macmillan
  • Em Kettner
  • Etta Sandry
  • Ewha Womans University
  • Expo Chicago
  • Forever21
  • Green Lantern Press
  • Guiermo Gomez-Spana
  • Heaven Gallery
  • Howardena Pindell
  • Hyde Park Art Center
  • International Wildlife Museum
  • Interstate Projects
  • Jack Handey
  • James Franco
  • Jessica Campbell
  • John Waters
  • Julian Assange
  • Julius Caesar
  • Kavi Gupta
  • Krista Franklin
  • La Pocha Nostra
  • Levi Budd
  • Liz McCarthy
  • MacDowell Colony
  • Maddie Reyna
  • Magalie Guerin
  • Maria Gaspar
  • Mattress Factory
  • Middlesex University
  • New American Paintings
  • Oliver Apte
  • Oxbow
  • Perpetual Rebel
  • Phil Hanson
  • Pplsft
  • Project Row Houses
  • Punk Cafe
  • Queer Thoughts
  • Rashayla Marie Brown
  • Riverside Arts Center
  • Roman Susan
  • Roots and Culture
  • RuPaul Charles
  • Sam Lipp
  • School of the Art Institute of Chicago
  • Sector 2337
  • Shary Boyle
  • Soo Shin
  • Tandem Felix Letterpress Mobile Studio
  • The Hills Esthetic Center
  • The Suburban
  • Theaster Gates
  • ThreeWalls
  • Trubble Club
  • TRUNK SHOW
  • University of Chicago
  • Valerie Carberry Gallery
  • Wikileaks
  • Yale University

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