Escapology by Cath Campbell
Cath Campbell’s Newcastle University artwork subverts our modern obsession with order and harmony.
The Installation
Escapology at Newcastle University is made from 456 metres of red western timber and adorns the roof of the Northern Stage Theatre.
At first glance, this piece of Northern Stage artwork comprised of wooden planks may appear in need of some attention from builders! But it in fact comments on the nature of architecture and public sculpture, playing with our expectations and desire for order.
The artist
Campbell’s practice as an artist is dominated by an ongoing enquiry into the status, meaning and fabric of architecture.
Taking Modernism as a point of departure, Campbell re-appropriates architectural imagery from memory or imagination. She creates works that reinvent our associations with the built environment.
She often works closely with architects, engineers and fabricators to create large-scale interventions that make use of the materials and forms intrinsic to a building. In this sense, Campbell’s work often bears subversive implications, which subtly jibe at the conventions of public art.
Rather than adding a new object to a given environment, she distorts or re-orders existing structures. In this way, her work enables a shift of both meaning and our relationship to space and the world. This is amply evident and demonstrated in her Newcastle University theatre artwork, Escapology.
