Cressida Campbell (b. 1960, Sydney) is an award-winning artist living and working in Sydney. She is renowned for her highly detailed woodblocks and unique woodblock prints depicting scenes of domestic interiors, Australian landscapes and still life. Like artists Giorgio Morandi or Margaret Olley (her great friend), Campbell recognises the beauty of the everyday, capturing the transitory moments of life, instilling her work with a timeless quality and enduring appeal.
Campbell’s awe-inspiring creative approach incorporates both painting and printmaking techniques. A multi-faceted process, Campbell begins with a detailed drawing onto plywood, before engraving the linework to form a shallow yet defined carving into the wood. She then meticulously applies layers of a luscious watercolour to paint the image onto the woodblock. Next, she carefully dampens the painted block and relief prints onto a dampened sheet of paper. The result is two unique artworks – a painted block and mirrored print on paper. Each are then manipulated by hand until the artist achieves her desired result. This sincerity of the labour-intensive process shines through making Campbell’s inimitable work highly sought after.
‘I like the texture and the colour of the watercolour prints,’ the artist has said. ‘I don’t do it all at once like an expressionist painter. All I know is if I just draw and paint onto a bit of paper it would not be nearly as good as the process that it goes through when it’s cut.’
Campbell completed studies in painting and drawing at East Sydney Technical College in 1979 before studying woodblock printing at the Yoshida Hanga Academy in Tokyo, Japan. Campbell has since exhibited extensively throughout Australia and abroad, with regular solo exhibitions. In 2009, a survey exhibition, Timeless: The art of Cressida Campbell was held at S.H. Ervin Gallery in Sydney and QUT Art Museum, Brisbane. She has won numerous awards and held prestigious residencies, including the Pring Prize and the Trustees’ Watercolour Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, as well as the Australia Council for the Arts Verdaccio Studio Residency in Italy.
Campbell is represented in major public collections in Australia and internationally, including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; National Museum, Krakow, Poland; and the British Museum, London, UK. Her work is held in private collections in Australia, the UK, the USA and Monaco.
Image: Cressida Campbell, Bedroom nocturne, 2022, watercolour on incised plywood, 120cm diameter (Detail). Acquired by National Gallery of Australia.
