Cara Campbell’s work explores human belonging within nature, lamenting its cultural erosion by the dualism of our christian heritage (the loss of Eden) and the agricultural, industrial and scientific revolutions since.  Using ancient techniques and classical style Campbell transports the viewer to an earlier “age of innocence” when flora and fauna were flourishing and revered, endowed with a potent symbolism she spotlights in dramatic hyper reality. The dandelion for example is ethereal and delicate but also a powerful call to action, a reminder of transience and renewal.  Seeking to honour such ‘weeds’ with pathos as enduring foot soldiers of a diminishing natural world we fetishise while destroying, that prevails only on the margins humanity forgets.  Campbell’s hope is ‘to draw the viewer back into an immersive, preternatural, almost spiritual communion with these beautiful and neglected saints, martyrs and relics by sharing my intense gaze, rewiring our connectivity to divine nature.’

Campbell’s attraction to the matt finish and timeless appearance of fresco and egg tempera techniques, alongside the natural, sustainable and even carbon capturing nature of the materials, lie in sympathy with her values and subject matter.  The materials she uses require skill to produce a marble smooth, creamy surface that absorbs pure pigment while hardening in the brief fresco stage. Later she immerses herself meditatively in the exquisite detail of the plants she surrounds herself with, painting them stem by stem from observation with egg yolk and water.