Drawing as Tapestry

Susan Campbell at Signal Arts Centre

According to vocabulary.com, you can use tapestry to describe anything that’s multi-layered and complex and Susan Campbell has referenced this particular weaving word both literally and metaphorically to bring together the work in her recent exhibition Drawing as Tapestry at Signal Arts Centre.

Paul Klee has said a drawing is simply a line going for a walk and this exhibition is all about drawing and lines. A plethora of lines meet the viewer in almost every work, both figurative and abstracted pieces.

One thinks of weaving constantly while looking at Campbell’s work: the warp lines (vertical) and the implied weft lines (horizontal) provide the structure for other images to emerge – windmills, waves, pebbles, and kouros figures. Campbell mostly uses vertical lines in her drawings, but they often overlap to create the appearance of a horizon from which one sees the stability of a weft .

The emergence of images in the drawings is beautiful and subtle. The precision of the line work is delicate and the lines themselves seem to transform into threads – easily mimicking tapestries, with all the complexity expected of that medium.

While there are a few works that hold their own with light and shade despite being black and white images, most works boast a graded rainbow of colour, which is delightful for the eye to behold.

Personally, I was stunned by the use of media: Campbell masterfully uses charcoal and pastel along with pencil crayon and ink pen to create most of her intricate drawings. She also includes collage elements and acrylic in several works, though to me, these did not quite fit in with the rest of the exhibition.

Before leaving “Drawing as Tapestry”, I took a whirlwind tour around the 44 works in case I had missed something. It was lovely to see a lot of red dots, as Campbell’s works are both visually appealing and very reasonably priced. While this is her first solo exhibition, I expect it most certainly won’t be the last! This exhibition has proven that Campbell’s ideas develop well beyond the surface of materials and her drawings are imbued with meaningful depth.