Visions of Hartlepool Installation

Public profile Emily Campbell is an established artist of 20 years, graduating with a first class degree from Camberwell school of Art, before gaining an MA from Chelsea School of art in Alternative Media. Her work has always looked at the hierarchy that can exist in the art world, a firm believer that understanding art is not difficult it just about believes what you see. Not content with the strict boundaries and rules of behaviour offered by the traditional four walls of the white cube, early work saw Campbell utilise the foyer space of the gallery. Seeing the entrance as the meeting point of the building and the visitor, the space where the external meets the internal, where we gain our first impressions, our first inkling as to how to behave in the space beyond. Fascinated by the floor space as a vastly underused space for art Campbell proceeded to create enormous, photographic images of parts of the human face - filling the floor with for example a wide-open mouth. Her interests lay in the subtle impact of self-consciousness as the viewer often walked blindly over the work; only realising the piece existed at all from the view at the top of the stairs. It seemed then a natural progression for Campbell to shrug off the hierarchy of the gallery space and shift the work into the public realm. Since early 1990 Campbell has completed an enormous amount of public art commissions, work that is inspired directly from the community that will be looking at it. This involvement and relationship with the public is integral to Campbell's work, ensuring public ownership is absolute. The pleasure derived from Campbell's work is now being offered to the masses through a commercial enterprise. This could be seen as Campbell's ultimate project, creating art that can be enjoyed both publically and privately - finally shaking the hierarchy of the gallery and creating affordable and practical art for all.