{"id":5530,"date":"2019-10-01T17:00:32","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T16:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/?p=5530"},"modified":"2019-10-01T17:00:32","modified_gmt":"2019-10-01T16:00:32","slug":"musician-of-the-month-conor-campbell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/2019\/10\/01\/musician-of-the-month-conor-campbell\/","title":{"rendered":"Artist of the Month: Conor Campbell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Around four years ago I completed a drawing inspired by a childhood dream featuring a landscape of balloons, floating boats and orange trees. I then shared it on social media and a friend, Sam Clague, messaged me asking if he could use it for an EP he was releasing called ‘Balloons’. I hadn\u2019t considered the idea of my work being used as cover art until that point. I loved Sam’s music and the music he sent me for the EP seemed to fit the mood of the drawing perfectly, so I said yes.<\/p>\n

A year or so later I moved to Dublin, where I befriended Br\u00edan and Diarmuid of Ye Vagabonds. They liked what I had done for Sam and eventually asked me to do the cover for their first album ‘Ye Vagabonds’. This led to many further collaborations over the following years.<\/p>\n

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I found when a musician came to me with an idea, or with an example of the sound and atmosphere of their release, that the image emerged very easily. It also helped if I loved the music.<\/p>\n

Music and art have always existed in the same world for me. The mood and melody of the music guides my hand, determining the mood and atmosphere of whatever I am working on. When I really connect with the songs, it doesn’t even feel like I am doing any work. I just listen and paint. The colours and the mood are already in the song.<\/p>\n

I started painting after my first year studying architecture. I hadn’t really done anything artistic up to that point. The architecture degree I took in the University of Limerick had a significant influence on my visual sensibility, and liberated alternative ways of thinking creatively. In the beginning I would lie in bed listening to ambient music or psychedelic rock and discover colours and shapes coming into my mind\u2019s eye for each song. Then the following morning I would set about drawing the imagery I recalled from that semi-conscious state.<\/p>\n

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Various elements of my childhood and life interests have influenced my practice. I grew up around a lot of religious imagery in Catholic churches and convents. I remember going to mass and zoning out staring at stained glass windows. My father introduced me to Byzantine iconography when I was very young, instigating an interest in ancient art, particularly Egyptian hieroglyphs and medieval illustrations and tapestries.<\/p>\n

I usually build up my work with layer upon layer of dots and colour. Through this chaos I find an order. If I am doing something that isn’t working, I just paint over it with a new layer of dots. I see the dots almost as pixels that allow me to organically control the evolution of the image into its finality.<\/p>\n

I think my work is usually highly detailed because of my interest in fractals and the infinite detail of reality. So at times I find it hard to know where to draw the line (pun intended) in terms of detail.<\/p>\n

Recently I have started collaborating with the musician Gareth Quinn Redmond, a recent and dear friend of mine. We connected over a mutual love of ambient\/environmental music. I brought some paintings over to his house and he wrote music inspired by them.<\/p>\n