CAMPBELL HUTCHINSON     BIOGRAPHY   REVIEWS   STATEMENT

Artist Statement

"I’ve been fascinated by figurative painting ever since I saw my first Modigliani painting fifty years ago. I didn’t pick up a paintbrush until decades later, a delay occasioned by a lengthy and arduous legal career. When I started painting twenty years ago, I gravitated to painting figures of characters whose looks interested me—people who looked like they had been “rode hard and put up wet.” I termed these my soul portraits.

When I tired of painting people, I turned to animals.  For me, the creatures I paint mirror the attitudes and moods of the human species, quite often the mood that inhabits my skin. I see in my animal subjects characteristics such as pride, anger, desperation, humor, boredom, anxiety, calm reflection, tension, and joy. In a sense I am trying to capture the souls of these beasts, similar to what I seek in painting the human figure.

My work often reflects my travels. In Mexico my wife and I shared a villa with a cocky bantam rooster, who woke us at dawn each morning with his crowing. On returning to my studio, I began my rooster series. While traveling in Scotland I became enamored with highland cattle—those large shaggy bovines that resemble enormous sheepdogs. I climbed fences into pastures to photograph these beasts, which were as curious about me as I was about them. From this experience came the subject matter for one of my 2006 exhibits. Sometimes my subject matter comes from closer to home, like my recent pelican series. I have always been fascinated by the brown pelican—Louisiana’s state bird—whose graceful swoops and incredible fishing skills belie its awkward appearance. The classic poses of these birds, while flying, swimming or merely perching on a piling, represent to me the freedom of being wild, untethered by convention or rules.

Painting for me is a joyous experience. I am not trying to deliver a message or champion a cause. I did that in my last profession. I seek only to share with the viewer the unique character of my subject."                   

                                                                                         -Hutchinson, 2008