4th April - 4th May 2024
ÉABHA CAMPBELL
MUSCA DEPICTA
Why is there nothing here when there should be something? The unseeing eyes of the dead; the bewildered eyes of an amnesiac?
MUSCA DEPICTA is derived from representations of insects in 17th Century European painting as religiously‐charged symbols of the soul and ephemeral life or carrying connotations of sin, corruption or mortality— appearing in religious texts and paintings of biblical scenes. Alternatively, the depiction of a fly on a portrait indicated that the portrait is post mortem. This body of work revolves around orifices, decomposition and infestation. Using painting, taxidermy and actively decaying specimens, the work captures the ephermerality of decay and metamorphosis and explores the in-between states within the dichotomy of life and death. The religious context of musca depicta is subverted, using arthropods and fragmented organic matter to embody the absurd, surreal and mundane. As a queer artist, I resonate with the grotesque and abject, and in this body of work, implement it in reprisal to the narratives of queer repression by religious institutions and reactionary rhetoric.
Éabha Campbell is an Irish multi-disciplinary fine artist currently based in Belfast after being awarded a First Class Honours in Fine Art (BA Hons) from Belfast School of Art, specialising in sound-based performance, traditional oil painting and the expanded practice of sculpture and video installation and has exhibited both nationally and internationally. Campbell’s work explores the intersection of the abject and queer identity, integrating a variety of sensory material, including auditory, olfactory, visual, and cutaneous elements, exploring the contiguity of attraction and repulsion, the weird and the grotesque.
