Continuing through October 22, 2016
Chicago-based artist Jessica Campbell’s series is especially at home the melancholy environment this is the dark, low-ceilinged basement gallery of The Mission. In “Bria,” the artist illuminates a chapter of her life shared with the girl whose name inspired the exhibition title: Campbell’s adolescent best friend-turned troubled adult, who’s recently passed. Snippets of an email reproduced in vinyl lettering and a series of wall-bound, worn-in carpet collages tug powerfully at a viewer’s own memory, recalling those musty basements of one’s young adulthood -- the spaces that were a refuge from the pressures and expectations of peers and parents.
In each of her three carpet pieces, Campbell depicts scenes that range from bleak to fearful: a plaid-skirted girl slumped behind a bar; three nude, teen girls hiding from a man in a truck, calling for them; a barefoot woman in the middle of the street, being shouted at from a megaphone. On the walls within the carpet scenes is “Suicidal Giggle,” vinyl paragraphs from an email written by adult Bria to the artist, candidly reporting her struggles with addiction and self-destruction, and recalling their shared artistic interests. Campbell has a strong background in comic art, and here, her ability to oscillate between written narrative and narrative imagery makes for a concise and very rich manifestation of memory, emotion and time passed.
