$375
Prickly: Melocactus Campbelloides
CAMPBELL, Paula
Color intaglio inked à la poupée.Edition of 20 color variants.Signed, titled, and numbered, and annotated in pencil.
Paula CAMPBELL
Paula Campbell is a Chicago-born printmaker whose work blends whimsy, observational wit, and painterly sensitivity. Growing up between Chicago, Paris, and Munich, she spent her youth drawing en plein air with her mother, an experience that instilled in her an early appreciation for seeing the world directly — a quality that continues to inform her intaglio practice.
Working primarily in color intaglio, Campbell’s prints are often executed à la poupée — a technique of hand-applying multiple pigments to a single plate — and may incorporate collage or hand-coloring. Her imagery springs from the ordinary: pastries, buildings, fashion, nature, and interiors become subjects that she treats with both elegant design and a playful twist. Campbell’s visual sensibility reflects the influence of Impressionist painting she first encountered at the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as her early formal training with Gianni Cilfone at age 14.
A longtime presence in the Chicago print community, she became part of a circle of artists connected to Audrey Niffenegger and has taught printmaking at the North Shore Art League in Winnetka, Illinois.
Distinguished by their fine-grain color aquatints, lively linework, Campbell's personal visual vocabulary turns quotidian scenes into elegant and quietly humorous compositions.