Ai Sogawa Campbell
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AQ Volume V artist Ai Sogawa Campbell creates abstract paintings and installations that capture the dynamism of nature. Born in Osaka in 1978, she majored in oil painting at Kyoto College of Art and Design, moving to the United States in 2005. Since then, she has explored her personal language of abstraction, developing a distinctive water-based process that relies on gravity and chance. Working in her New Jersey studio, she experiments with paint, ink drawing, spray painting, and collage, crafting works with intricate patterns that evoke nature in motion. She has exhibited her paintings in galleries and art fairs nationally and internationally. Recently, Campbell has been making works for public settings, designing murals and installations for hotel spaces, affordable housing developments, and installations in various ships on Norwegian Cruise Lines.
www.aicampbell.com
What inspired you to become an artist, and how did you decide to commit to this path?
It happened really organically as I grew up in a creative environment where my grandfather was an industrial designer, my mother was a jewelry designer and maker, and also a potter. My father actively played jazz in multiple bands. So, as a kid, I was always surrounded by their artist friends.
It wasn’t until I was a young adult that I discovered some of the landscapes my grandfather drew while actually serving in WWII. Before this discovery, I was doing really colorful figurative work, but when I saw his work, I really discovered the power of black-and-white drawing and pretty much dropped painting for a while. As he passed away before I was born, those drawings were the only interaction I had with him, but they gave me some clues about who he was as a person.
As an only child, I found at a very young age that drawing was the best way to entertain myself in a small family, and constantly drawing and making things was my way of making sense of my surroundings and exploring perceptions. Later on as an adult, I couldn’t imagine doing anything that didn’t relate to creating. So, I focused on figuring out a way to allow myself to continue making art. And that kind of organically became a way of life.
Could you share the story or concept behind your recent work?
My new series is influenced by my recent experiences back in my home country of Japan. It’s about home and identity. I’ve been living in the US for 19 years now, but over the last five years, I’ve spent a lot of time in Japan, mainly to support my family. I simultaneously gave birth there and also went through a series of family losses, which left me feeling uprooted. Having gone through such an emotionally charged time, I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of home, my culture, and customs, and what actually makes me “me.”
I started off the series with a piece inspired by a place I used to go very often as a kid near my family house. It’s an old train track overlooking a narrow river. I revisited this rugged yet serene place recently and found myself so spiritually connected. Most things in life change somehow, but there are certain things that don’t change. I think that’s what I saw in the landscape there, and it felt precious to me.
As a familiar landscape can bring back specific emotions and memories, I started going through my old photos from Japan that relate to my idea of home. I transferred some of those images onto the canvas and started collaging them onto the piece. This image transfer technique is a new addition to my practice. It’s intriguing both psychologically and visually how this step makes me look back on different stages of my life in a more direct way, while it introduces figurative elements to my abstract work. I’m very excited to see where this series takes me.
What was the most challenging part of your path so far? How are you navigating this obstacle?
Navigating life as an expat hasn’t always been easy. I came to the US as an adult and I often felt like I wasn’t really myself communicating in a second language. Not only was it the language itself, but also the way people communicated, which is often influenced by cultural background. For example, in my country, modesty is highly valued. People tend to downplay themselves even though they excel at something and are confident about their ability. Whereas, here in the US, we tend to highlight the positives about ourselves no matter the situation. This difference took me a while to get used to. Although communication skills are such a basic necessity for everyday life and are very important, especially when it comes to career opportunities, adjusting to that hasn’t always been easy for me. Things got better and better the longer I lived here, but the idea that you’ve been taught to behave in a certain way since a very young age and you believed in that way for such a long time, takes effort to break down, even if it’s for the purpose of achieving a better outcome.
What role does experimentation and exploration play in your artistic practice?
Experimentation and exploration are crucial to my practice. As a result of extensive experiments over the years, I have developed my own distinctive processes that involve ink pouring, masking, collaging, spray painting, and drawing to create an intricate mixed-media work of art.
To me, exploration directly connects with my processes. My work begins with pouring liquid pigment over a wet surface such as stretched canvas. As I let the water mix the colors rather than mixing them with a brush, I get a very spontaneous result, as it relies on gravity and chance. I intentionally start each piece that way in order to create an “unexpected situation” that I have to solve. Then I go through a series of precise steps that follow; these processes are like my tools for exploring and achieving a final composition. The sense of exploration is what keeps me excited and motivated, which is why creating a precise sketch upfront never works for me.
Every time I come across a moment where I feel like “what if I try this instead?”, I’m usually so curious that I have to try it. I may fail multiple times until I find a way, but there’s no other way for my work to evolve.
Do you have any start or stop rituals before creating?
At the beginning of each piece, I write things on the actual painting surfaces. They can range from functional facts such as the date and time to colors and concepts, like thoughts, song titles, and important words that occupy my head right at that moment. By doing that I’m acknowledging and staying in the present moment, to be honest to the new creation. Some words get buried under ink in the process, but some can even remain visible through to the end and become part of the work. As we hand-write less and less, the act of writing by hand has become a powerful ritual to me. I see my mood being reflected in how I write, which is something typing doesn’t capture. The whole process of seeing my hand giving my thoughts shape, as my own eyes can see and confirm it, makes the whole thing more real and helps me to understand what I’m digesting every day.
What message do you hope your art conveys to the world?
One of my most important and personal experiences with art has been encountering moments where a work of art makes me feel that “it’s okay to be this way,” a sense of resonance and approval. For example, when I came across Japanese artist Rey Camoy who often depicted negative aspects of being human through his motifs of wretched characters, as a young person trying to figure out who she was and sensing a gap between her true inner self and what seemed to be acceptable, it was such a relief to feel that I was not the only one. There are a lot of things that people carry with them and not necessarily share with anyone for any reason. If my art can reach that space in someone’s mind and make them feel a little less lonely or give them a sense of relief, that would make me feel that I’m doing something meaningful.
Share a mantra or favorite quote that keeps you going.
My grandfather, who had a strong personality and a strict work ethic as a successful industrial designer, was full of quotable comments. Here’s one:
“As long as you have something that makes you mad every day, you never run out of subject matter.”
According to a close associate, he often grumbled about countless products that appeared pointless and impractical to him, and preferred talking much more about what he’s going to do next, rather than what he has already done. Not necessarily having anger as motivation, but his words reflect his sincere attitude and devotion toward hard work throughout a long career designing products to improve the quality of life for other people.
