Go along and see if you, too, Love Campbell

Hearing a recording of people saying they love an artist as you walk around their first solo show may seem like an act of hypnosis to get you to like their work.

But for photographer Campbell Addy, whose first solo show is filled with highlights of their eight-year career with an accompanying soundscape that includes a recording of people saying “I Love Campbell” (I ❤ Campbell), it is something entirely different.

Whilst this may appear narcissistic at first glance, the new show at 180 Studios in The Strand, central London, acts as a stage for the Croydon-born photographer’s vulnerability and reflects his attempts to find different ways to love himself.

Photography, self portraits, paintings and film surround you on black walls as you walk along a bright red carpet accompanied by a soundscape from the instrumentalist and producer, CKTRL, to create a fully immersive exhibition.

Ayuol Manyok is an Australian-born model who features in one of the show’s photographs.

Ms Manyok, who lived in Brixton when she first moved to the UK, said: “Campbell has got a wonderful team around him.

“He was very warm off the bat and thanked me for coming in.”

Mr Addy’s work over the years has a common theme of distinctive casting of under-represented faces as well as experimenting with the norms of photography and art.

Ms Manyok said: “I asked him, ‘I Love Campbell, what does that mean?’ and I remember him saying it’s the different ways he sees himself, sometimes as the subject and sometimes as the photographer.

“I think that’s quite nuanced, as a photographer to put yourself in the shoes of a model.

“Working with him was incredibly easy because he was so facilitating and at the same time very flexible.

“I love a photographer that tells you what to do but will see you do something random and say ‘oh! That right there, I really like that’.”

Since graduating from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in 2016, Mr Addy has had work showcased in Dazed, i-D, Rolling Stone and Time magazines.

Last year, he released his monograph, Feeling Seen and months later debuted a selection of his paintings in a group project at the Saatchi Gallery called A New Paradise.

Over the past year he had also been working on a series of photographs reimagining his Bible studies and an art film about love that he created in Ghana.

All of these works feature in the new show at 180 studios in The Strand.

The photographer said: “I feel like I lost the essence of who Campbell is over the last four years.

“I don’t think it was good or bad, I just think that happens to young artists who are plucked from obscurity and thrown into the deep end.

“I think I took some time away to grow so that I could come back and do it all over again – that’s how it feels.”

Another element of the show that makes Mr Addy’s works stand out is his use of annotations on some of the images.

Rough pencil and paint strokes contrast against crisp and saturated images of models staring down the camera lens.

Mr Addy has said that his annotations are supposed to deconstruct the image with the addition of written work.

On one of the show’s self portrait’s, Mr Addy has circled his own face and written “increase the black”.

The annotation draws attention to the photographer’s colours as well as his race, and raises more personal questions about how the photographer views himself.

I Love Campbell will run from May 11 until June 4 at 180 Studios, The Strand.

 

Website: https://www.180studios.com/i-love-campbell-i

 

Picture: Ayuol Manyok with the picture she models in at the opening of the exhibition