So glad to resume the Digital Portraits with an interview to a greatly talented artist and very dear friend, Paddy Campbell. Paddy is an Irish businessman that achieved beginning a new carreer as a sculptor, here in Florence, where he has exhibited in some of the most beautiful places like Palazzo Medici Riccardi and Fiesole. But let's hear Paddy's own words about how he changed his life following his deep passion for art and sculpture.
"Even as a child in Ireland I loved to draw and paint, and art was by for my best subject at school. I chose a career in business, but when I was about 50 years old I returned to art, and came to Florence to study painting. After a few years, I tried sculpture, which I realised was my natural gift, and from the year 2000 I spent three years full time studying figurative sculpture technique in Florence, where I soon found a studio. Since then I have worked and lived mainly in Florence, making sculptures large and small, first in wax and then having them finished in bronze or marble. To my pleasant surprise, they are exhibited and collected in many parts of the world, mainly in Ireland and Italy."
If Paddy is surprised, we are not, because his works have the special power to express a strong love for life and a vibrant, thankful passion. I love the energy of his athletes and I'm captured by the way Paddy can portray women, at every stage, moment, mood in their lives.
LAVORO. WORK.
Passione. Passion.
I chose to sculpt people because I was always fascinated by the human form, and also by the story behind each face, each gesture, each emotion.
My passion comes from the Irish tradition of storytelling. I use form instead of words. Sculpture in place of poetry.
2.0
I use technology to improve my images (eg. Photography), but I work mainly which my hands.
Mondo nuovo. New world.
Financial crisis are never permanent (nor are boom-times). Art survives in a crisis, but rarely thrives.
Mantra. Mantra.
“Art should stir the heart” (far vibrare il cuore)
Progetti. Projects.
Next exhibition will be at Slieve Donard, Co.Down, Northern Ireland, in January and February 2014.
Paddy Campbell's exhibition in Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Florence, summer 2013.
ARTE. ART.
Estetica. Aesthetics.
Beauty is what stimulates an emotional response, be this happiness, sadness, delight, even passion. Creative art enables us to indulge any one (or more than one) of our senses intelligently.
Arteterapia. Art therapy.
Art is sensual therapy
Sinestesia. Synesthesia.
I create sculptural scenarios which can embrace form, colour, sound-effects, lighting, and emotions. They become a 3-dimensional theatre which turn the viewer to voyeur.
Colore. Colour.
All colours excite my- eyes – even colours I dislike.
Fari. Lighthouses.
Artworks that I love include paintings by Van Gog and Egon Schiele, sculptures by Bernini and Ron Muech and poetry by Seamus Heaney.
I am greatly inspired by Bernini’s “Daphne and Apollo”.
