Tammi Campbell: Mono/Chromatic
College Art Gallery 1, University of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
30 September to 16 December

Tammi Campbell’s series of Monochromes represent common packing materials utilized in the art studio, including cardboard, polyethylene wrap, bubble wrap, tarps, packing and masking tape. The sculptural paintings, comprised entirely of acrylic paint, manipulate the medium through exacting processes developed in her studio. By way of this technique, Campbell has created seemingly impossible replicas of these materials.

Informed by the legacies of minimalism and the monochrome, this exhibition offers a kind of re-evaluation, raising questions and ideas related to the viewing of painting. Historically the monochrome intended to reduce painting to its purest form and colour, inviting a closer examination of the physical elements. Campbell’s consideration of this conceptual framework is evident in both the colour and material in the series. Her meticulous re-creation of packing tape wrinkles and scratches found on the surface of corrugated cardboard require a close read. These imperceptible, meticulously recorded details reveal not only Campbell’s skill, but her humour in the ideological failings of an exhibition that appears to be installed, yet the work remains packaged, folded and wrapped.

Mono/Chromatic: Tammi Campbell and Tammi Campbell/Leah Rosenberg is curated by Leah Taylor, University of Saskatchewan.

At the Threshold of Appearances – Troy Gronsdahl, 2016