Yvonne Adkins
Associate Curator
Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery

Exhibition opening, Hobart , 6 th October 2006

It gives me great pleasure to be invited to open this exhibition of Denise's recent works, which follows her most successful exhibition held in 2004 at the Queen Victoria Museum & Gallery in Launceston.

Denise's work reflects her love of the Tasmanian landscape, in particular the Tamar Valley . And the Orkney Islands, off the North East Coast of Scotland , first visited in 1992. Both provide a source of inspiration for her and have had a profound influence on her work. Her student years, first in Tasmania , and in Scotland at the Glasgow School of Art, curiously foreshadowed the strong links she has established between the two landscapes.

Denise tells how she needs to understand the structure of the land. As a child she was brought up in the isolation of the Tasmanian highlands at Shannon , a rather wild place, where she knew no fear but developed a love of this irregular pattern of land and climate. Later, as a young artist, Denise found inspiration exploring the rugged landscape surrounding the mining village of Storey 's Creek in the foothills of Ben Lomond .

Today, Denise's work practice will include, daily, drawing in her work diary: references, intuitive works, often exquisite, small colour vignettes of personal thoughts and feelings, innocent marks, like a line of poetry. These do not become a painting but provide the artist with a starting point.

Her distinctive use of the curved lines, often referencing boat shapes, can be seen in several of the oil paintings in this exhibition, along with simple bowl forms. Both forms are non-threatening, still and reflective, quietely throwing the challenge of a bowl as a receptacle for sustenance or an offering.

Figures are implied rather than shown, just as the mythical Keepers of Lighthouses guide boats to safety. Boats cannot travel without oarsmen, bowls need providers and receivers, and the bowl casts a shadow as the sundial informs time. Denise's paintings are unsigned, like the unknown craftsman, the paintings must speak for themselves.

In the exhibition, the work Together reminds me of the vasculum – or metal box used by botanists to collect specimens, the boat in dry dock, a rugged journey. So Denise collects, distils and documents with her own language the essence of place, united with her intense humanity. In the painting Deep Blue , the unexpected flash of red reflects her anxiety of the relentless 21 century and the feared loss of culture.

Tonight I commend this exhibition to you.
Denise Campbell Real & Imagined Exhibition of New Work 2001-2004
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery Launceston

Bridget Arkless
Curator of Fine Art
September 2004

2004 marks thirty years since Denise Campbell completed her art training at the Launceston Technical College and Tasmanian College of Advanced Education. Since 1975 she has worked here in Launceston as an artist and a tertiary art teacher. It is in honour of this important milestone in her career that Denise has been invited to show her recent work in a solo exhibition in the Art Gallery at Inveresk.

Islands provide a continuing source of fascination. In recent years, Denise has spent extended periods living and working in the Orkney Islands . Having studied at the Glasgow School of Art in 1974-75 she has maintained this important connection with Scotland . Real & Imagined explores the proccupations and connections in the artist's recent work.

I would like to thank Denise for her generous spirit and unfailing commitment to the realization of this exhibition. It has been a great pleasure for the Museum staff involved with this project to work with such a truly professional artist. Special thanks also go to the exhibition curator, Yvonne Adkins, Associate Curator of Fine Art, for her careful and committed work. Thanks are also extended to the following Museum staff, Carolyn Coert, Martin George, John Leeming, Craig McCormack, Roy Mathers, Rene Singline and the Director Chris Tassell, for their support and assistance with the realization of this important exhibition.

Andersch, Joerg Poetry and Mirth The Mercury 14 October, 2006 p.8

Poetry and Mirth
Colville Street Gallery, Battery Point
Price range: $60 to $6000

Showing their artwork at Colville St are painter Denise Campbell, sculptor Tricia Swanton and printmaker Gaby Falconer.

It has been a while since Hobart audiences have seen Campbell 's fine paintings; her last solo showing was nearly a decade ago. Represented in this exhibition with a beautiful body of work, Campbell seems to explore her relationship with the sea.

There are no vistas of water crashing onto rocky shores but the visual impressions of her living space in relation to the sea. It's about objects and forms interposing the more distant view of the water, or simply a pattern of shapes strongly related to a marine environment.

Worked in pencils and oils, her paintings have an attractive texture that lends great subtlety to her work. Add to that her audacious balancing act with form, colour and weight, and you have some great work on hand.

Swanton's zany plastic sculptures are a riot. Created from found objects, these beautiful assemblies are toy-like, mostly in brilliant primary colours. Robots they may look like, but with their endearing quality of toys, a Terminator label would not suit them.

Falconer's prints speak of human relationships and have an endearing quality. There is a lovely sensitivity in her vision and product that makes her artwork always a pleasure to view.