Did it have an impact on your work? I know that when my mum passed away, I had this urge to create—my background is in illustration. But for about a year, I couldn’t actually do anything. It took me that long to process and go back into a normal practice.
Yeah. I had an exhibition scheduled about 18 months after he died, but I had to put it aside for a year. It was incredibly hard to get it done. I had to do a lot of work in six months. I was working very hard, but, understandably, I was distracted.
After that, I created boxed cards of my work. Peter always wanted to do it, ever since we published a book of my work: The Woodblock Painting of Cressida Campbell, in 2008. He was very clever at publishing. He published three other books.
All art books?
Two of them were, and one of them was about the Australian film industry. One was about an artist that is quite well-known, William Yang. It was a book of his work, called Sydney Diary. It’s quite famous now.
But anyway, I had to postpone my show this year, because although I am feeling like I am getting back into it now, I do think that it’s taken me a long time to recover. I am going too slow, I am very distracted. And it’s interesting because, funnily enough, he had a fantastic eye, so I would show him my work and stuff.
So has it been hard losing his eye?
It has! But my mother has a wonderful eye. I always show her. Ultimately, luckily enough, I can trust my own eye [laughs].
But still, it’s been a huge thing. Because he worked at home—he was a film critic—he was running our lives, in his own practical way. And I am not practical, I don’t know how to do that. He was very clever as well, and we had all those interesting discussions. So it’s been a strange thing getting used to not having him here.
For some reason I have done a lot of paintings lately with skies in them, which I never did in the past. Like in “Flannel Flowers,” the last painting I did before he died. So you never really know how life can affect your work. It happens in a strange kind of way that isn’t conscious.
So you have noticed some changes in your practice?
It’s not so much in the practice, it’s more in the result, or in the choice of subjects. The picture of the “Flannel Flowers,” for example, is quite large, and it’s got a sort of heavenly feel about it. I wanted it to feel like heaven, I wanted that kind of meditative, peaceful feel for it.
It is quite symbolic, in a way.
It is a bit. But I didn’t consciously think of it like that. And funnily enough, I am doing a few pictures of hallways at the moment, which are also symbolic, I guess. I don’t know what you could read into that [laughs]. Looking down passages!
Hallways are definitely a passing kind of space.
Yeah, interesting you say that because I really feel like I am just coming through, feeling better. You know grief can have an enormous effect. You would have to be pretty insensitive if you didn’t have a reaction to it. How old was your mama when she died?
Fifty-four. I was 24.
Oh, shit. I’m 55. And I was 51 when Peter died. He was 61. And when my father died he was 72 and I was 22. How is your father?
He is not a very expressive person, so it’s difficult to say. I think he has his moments. He’s bounced back pretty well though, because he has a very solid social circle, and he comes every year to see me, and I go visit him in France every year. But, yeah, he and my brother are not big talkers, so it’s hard to say. I think everyone reacts in their own ways.
Well the cliche about men is that they are more insular, in that way. And usually, I suppose, clichés are clichés because they have a bit of truth in them.
Did you find it easy expressing your grief around losing Peter?
It has been hard, but not so much in that way. Funnily enough, it’s been harder socially. I mean, my work, painting, it has always been a fallback for me. But getting used to being a single person has been hard—I like spending time on my own, that’s not a problem, but it’s more how other people treat you. They don’t mean to, but I do think people, especially when in a couple, treat single people differently. And I probably did the same without realising it. Also, there is that reaction that people have when someone dies, they don’t know want to say, they don’t even want to talk about it. I mean, if I was to mention Peter, even to very close friends, I can tell it makes them nervous. I think it’s because people don’t want you to be upset. Because they love you, and they are good friends, and they don’t want to make it awkward for themselves. So they don’t want to bring it up at all. Have you experienced that?
Definitely. I think it’s a bit scary for people, because it confronts them to something they don’t really want to think about.
That’s right, it’s almost as if they will catch the disease or something.
Yeah! Which makes it difficult sometimes to get over grieving, because it can be quite lonely.
Yeah, that’s true. It is exactly that.
So tell me what nourishes you outside of painting?
I love movies, I haven’t been to the movies much lately but I do love watching old movies, classics and stuff. And I also love gardening, swimming, going to galleries a lot. And I love cats, I love cats!
Me too!
They’re wonderful. So I’m inspired by many things. Visually I have always been really lucky that I find practically everything interesting to look at. And also I love listening to music. In the last 10 years or so I have particularly loved listening to classical, but I also like Leonard Cohen, or jazz. Nature is also inspiring, beautiful. I love looking at trees. And also I am really close to my family.
Do they live in Sydney?
Yeah. I’ve got two sisters and a brother. One of my sisters is a textile designer called Sally Campbell Textile. All beautiful and handmade. She goes to the desert in India about three times a year! She is very creative. And my other sister, she was in the original Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Wow!
Yeah! She is incredible, a very talented actress. She also ran a night club called Nell’s in New York for years! And now she is back here with her 17-year-old daughter, who is also very creative, actually. She is a fantastic illustrator, very funny, like a cartoonist. She is amazing. And I’ve got a really critical eye, so I won’t say they are amazing if they are not! [Laughs].
And my father was a wonderful writer, a funny writer. And mum, she went to art school, and then became a reporter, did journalism, but she really wanted to have children.
What a family! Did you ever struggle to find your place as an artist in such an amazingly creative family?
Not really, no. Because first of all, by the time I was 11, they had all moved out of home. And luckily, both my father and my mother never pushed in any direction other than where we naturally wanted to go. We are all so different, even though we have similar values and we work in creative areas, there was never competition. We were all doing different things. I think I have been lucky that people responded to my style, because it’s slightly outside of what a lot of people do.
Outside of trends?
Exactly. Which I guess is both good and bad.
I think it’s good! Trends can trap you sometimes.
Yeah, in a way it’s true. But having said that, a lot of wonderful artists were part of great movements. So there are no rules, really. I like to remind myself of that.
You can find Cressida’s work at cressidacampbell.com
