Artist Philip Campbell creates carved and painted bas-relief sculptures in wood, but identifies more as a three-dimensional painter than a woodworker. He executes his underpainting in African mahogany with a chisel to add depth, shaping texture that one can touch. The weight, strength, and grain of the wood adds life to his narratives.
Campbell started making bas-relief paintings in the mid-1990s, but beginning in 2009, his work became much more personal, as he began to tell personal stories lived and heard. He writes: “We are all the sum of our memories.”