{"id":93090,"date":"2026-01-08T00:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T00:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/93090\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T00:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T00:24:08","slug":"pay-attention-to-the-work-of-the-new-york-artist-michael-alexander-campbell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/93090\/","title":{"rendered":"Pay attention to the work of the New York artist Michael Alexander Campbell"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0
\"\"\/Michael Alexander Campbell, Church Work<\/p>\n

By ANTHONY HADEN-GUEST January 7th, 2026<\/p>\n

It was Asher Edelman, the Switzerland-based mega-collector, who suggested I pay attention to the work of the New York artist, Michael Alexander Campbell. I duly set up a meeting with Campbell, a fellow Brit in his 20s, in his studio on the Bowery, knowing I would see well executed work but not expecting anything particularly unusual. Wrong. Campbell first dug out a richly textured abstraction. \u201cThis is an older piece,\u201d he said. \u201cI painted it on my roof in the East Village. Which was really to do with I couldn\u2019t afford a studio. The pigment melted in the summer and it froze in the winter and there are imprints from the rain. It\u2019s got sand in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

How often did he check on the piece?<\/p>\n

\u201cI looked at it every morning. Sometimes I took it out of the rain and then put it back.\u201d \u201cHow long was it up there?\u201d \u201cAbout a year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The canvases stacked in the studio told Campbell\u2019s art story. He had begun by painting abstractions. \u201cI was just making marks and seeing what happens. It was a process thing, with marks and intuition,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a bit of randomness with the mark making. I\u2019m trying to make a precise mark but if the painting would look good with an extra mark somewhere, it comes down to that. And I think that\u2019s really what separates painting from other visual media. The mark is intentional but some of them have randomness in them.\u201d Campbell was living in Zuoz, a town in Switzerland, in 2019 and had a day job in a ski shop. Which was where he met Julian Schnabel, \u201cI met him when I was selling skis\u201d Campbell says. \u201cHe said what do you do? And I said I\u2019m an artist.\u201d So was he, Schnabel said. But Campbell didn\u2019t recognize his name. \u201cI guess he found my lack of knowledge very endearing or something,\u201d he says. \u2018We talked, he looked at my paintings, he said maybe one day you can come and work for me in New York.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schnabel left Switzerland shortly after. \u201cI thought that it was never going to happen. I thought that was it.\u201d Campbell says. But he was telephoned by Schnabel\u2019s wife, Louise, and duly became his studio assistant in Switzerland and New York. \u2018\u201cHe let me stay in his house and paint in his basement while he was in Italy,\u201d he says. Schnabel also gave him a show in the downstairs space in his Manhattan home, the Palazzo Chupi, just after an Ai WeiWei show curated by his son,Vito.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Michael Alexander Campbell, Self Portrait
\u00a0<\/p>\n

In October 2023 Campbell stopped beginning a work by making a mark. His rejection of marks was extreme, \u201cI don\u2019t sign paintings any more. I sign them on the back,\u201d he says, \u201cI started working from images\u201d. His process now begins with an online search for an image from which he can generate a painting nnd the resultant canvas usually features a sizable abstracted form derived from such an image, rendered on a flat wash. He builds these forms from a mix of pigment and wax, sometimes plus linseed oil and maybe with a touch of Liquin, a gel-like substance artists use to make paint dry. Such forms have have a quasi-sculptural presence and the flat wash is oil paint, sometimes sprinkled with turpentine.<\/p>\n

He indicated such a canvas \u201cThis one is a cricket player,\u201d he said. \u201cI have never played cricket. But I saw an image of it and it looks great.\u201d Another image suggests a dandified male figure with an explosion of ginger hair. What image ignited that? \u201cIt\u2019s a self-portrait,\u201d he said. It is indeed entitled Self Portrait.<\/p>\n

What had propelled the marks to images transition? \u201cGood question,\u201d he said. \u201cIt could have been when I saw Dana Schutz\u2019s exhibition at the Louisiana museum north of Copenhagen. I think what I wanted was to be able to paint anything.\u201d He had also been affected by a striking visual experiencce. \u201cI think that ultimately. It started when I was walking around Williamsburg and saw a statue of a baby in front of someone\u2019s house which I thought looked amazing. It was kitschy, it wasn\u2019t real stone, but I thought it looked fabulous. I was with two friends of mine, both of who are art dealers or curators. And they didn\u2019t see it, they didn\u2019t see anything special. But it didn\u2019t look like a baby anymore. Its head had become something different.\u201d
\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Michael Alexander Campbell, Legless Jester<\/p>\n

Campbell gleefully accepts that the body of work that evolved from this surreal moment could be characterized as \u201cslightly obsessive\u201d. He indicated a specific canvas, emphasizing the importance of chance in its making. \u201cif I had it in my head I would not surprise myself, it would be a bad thing,\u201d he said. \u201cSo it\u2019s quite loosely thrown on and I had taken out his leg. And the colors are different and the shadow is different. So once I had painted him, The One-Legged Jester, I call him.\u201d<\/p>\n

When did he become one legged?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I made that mark. I like that mark\u201d he said, adding \u201cI decided where the shadow would go. So I took a picture of the shadow on the phone and sketched it in.\u201d<\/p>\n

The five canvasses in Campbell\u2019s How to Worship series combine realism, such as the spectral images of slender standing tables, with the abstracted forms ignited by the downloaded images. And the title of the group? \u201c I grew up as an atheist,\u201d Campbell says. \u201cBut I do believe that everybody has an innate desire to worship. It feels good to believe in something.\u201d<\/p>\n

So to the shadows.. Campbell\u2019s purely realist elements tend to be spectral, like the standing tables in How to Worship, whereas the painterly forms he developed from the downloaded images have a sculptural presence. In 2023 he took to doubling down on their three dimensional punch by painting in a shadow. \u201cI first introduced shadows in earnest this summer in Florence,\u201d he said and indicated a canvas. \u201cThis one I thought was very self-indulgent. You need a whole second canvas just for the shadow. And I like that. It\u2019s a bit strange.\u201d He had got the idea from downloading photographs. \u201cIt did open up a new world,\u201d he said. \u201cBut he shadow is usually not in the photographs. So it\u2019s new.\u201d<\/p>\n

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