Colin Campbell was born in Reston, Manitoba in 1942. He gained his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg in 1966 and his Masters of Fine Art degree from Claremont Graduate School in California in 1969. After completing his education, he returned to Canada to teach at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, where he stayed until 1972 – a watershed year in Campbell’s artistic development. As one of the pioneers of video art in Canada, Toronto based artist Colin Campbell has had an international career that parallels the development of video art. Originally a sculptor, Campbell was first introduced to video in 1972, as the technology was beginning to emerge. “For me, video’s appeal lay in its potential for theatricality, performance and narrative,” said Campbell in Now Magazine. “The first subject of those things was myself. Gradually I started to turn the camera outward, developing characters and personae much different from my own.” Campbell avoids slick television style video production in favour of his highly developed grass roots style, which Bruce Ferguson has called the “aesthetics of poverty.”
Campbell’s narratives explore gender-bending scenarios, rich with humour and pathos. In his exploration of gender stereotypes, Campbell has consistently kept to informal styles and scripts, cheap and homespun sets, and a cast often made up of himself and friends, including Ferguson, artists Johanna Householder and Tanya Mars, and fellow video veteran Lisa Steele. His approach was perhaps best described by Adele Freedman in Toronto Life: “Campbell is the kind of romantic who can sense tragic potential in a package of Kraft dinner.”
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