‘The creative person should have no other biography than their works’
B Traven
There exists a view that there are two types of artist; one that addresses art history and another that addresses the present directly.
I try to make work that both addresses the entirety of art history and that is contemporary (that could only be made now).
My aim is always to arrive at a synthesis in my work, both in form and content, where the divide is invisible and as such know when a piece works because there is an equilibrium and a poised tension between the two. It can be a high wire act.
In this way, and by not focussing on ‘what I have to say’, an inevitable byproduct emerges: the almost intangible ‘authorial voice’. It’s there but one cannot approach it too directly.
I also want my work to have elegance, a resilience and a sense of illumination especially in this new age of endarkenment- and for it to act as a counter to the infiltration and occupation of our imagination by A.I.
No tricks, no gimmicks, no grift.
If there is a kind of key or perhaps formula to my work then it derives from the reciprocal relationship between the Art Historical, the Environmental and Specificity (in location and material – i.e. the uses of forest fire charcoal or Dorset chalk)
The result I hope is that Nature is Culture and Habitat and Habit are unified.
My work can appear stagey or perhaps contrived but this is deliberate; the artifice should I think be apparent since I am engaged in the act of making images not taking images.
The result is a unique artifact, a permanent record: an artwork.
Art at its’ best can then become an ethical activity and a way of being in and of the world: the artist a lens through which it is focused.
Finn Campbell-Notman 2026
