Tony Campbell: Observations 26th May to 13th July 2015

New Gallery Space:
Tony Campbell: Observations
26th May to 13th July 2015
Open eve 28th May 7-9pm

Tony Campbell is a London based graphic designer and artist. The work exhibited, a mix of photography, digital painting and illustration, represents his vision of 21st century London and its diverse communities and inhabitants.


After studying at Cardiff College of Art in the early 1970s, Tony also completed a graphic design course at Newport College of Art. Since leaving Wales in 1980 his career has incorporated everything from corporate design and book illustration to animation for feature films such as Hackers and Event Horizon. He currently works as a freelance designer and motion graphics artist in London.

The desire to put a different slant on the world through his photography and illustration is a driving force for Tony.  Manipulating images by reducing tones and colours or introducing textures to flat planes can create an entirely different mood in a picture and in the message it conveys . His Shard illustration has the feel of a post-modern impressionist work while his London skyline evokes a sci-fi landscape rubbing shoulders with mysterious Medieval streets – a hyper-reality created through the use of high dynamic range photography.  Sometimes photography is just the starting point for a work which then takes on a more abstract painterly form, as in Woman with a Blue Viola.

Tony’s varied portfolio of work also embraces flower studies and a series of drawings under the banner ‘Tales from the Underground’. The latter sprang from people-watching while he was travelling by tube and blossomed into sketches and caricatures drawn on his tablet that bring to life the many and varied characters going about their business in the bustling metropolis.

The most recent exhibition of Tony’s work, Inside Out, featured black and white photographs taken by him and his brother Simon documenting life in the close-knit, multi-ethnic community of Tiger Bay in Cardiff during the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s. The exhibition was so popular that it has been given a permanent home in the community centre at the heart of the old Tiger Bay area of Cardiff’s docklands, where Tony was born.