Kay Campbell is a native of Ohio and moved to Oregon in 1987 to assume her second university position at Southern Oregon University. She is a Professor Emerita of Art and Design at Oregon State University, where she taught in the Printmaking program and oversaw the Foundation curriculum. Campbell has long been considered a color specialist as her work would indicate. She has been a contributor to a number of textbooks on color theory and design and has taught courses in color theory throughout her career. Campbell’s work has been on exhibition in over 300 venues since her graduate education at The University of Kansas. She has received numerous grants and awards and has served as a juror, curator and lecturer throughout the United States.
Campbell says of her work–
“I believe that in any body of work produced by a single artist, the most recent piece will include the genetic make-up of all proceeding works. My work has always been driven by content and has not represented a single media or process; rather, my intended communication provokes my inquiry with a particular material and means of execution. I respond to materials of all forms and navigate those needed to convey the ideas that I am engaged with. I respond to and seek to create art that asks questions about universal societal norms and interactions. Through my investigation of ideas, images and process, my artistic practice examines the social dialogue between artist and viewer.
I attribute a great deal of my evolution as an artist to my undergraduate education as a double major in Visual Arts and Theater Design. My formative conceptual experiences, material scavenging, and questions posed of what is real or imagined is due in large part to a creation of illusion from my design work in the theater. The recent passing of an important mentor has caused me to reflect and recognize what a significant impact that time had on how I would later conceive and create artwork. Aspects of identity, place of origin, shelter, preservation, human rights, and irony informs my work.”