Colleen Campbell
Colleen Campbell is an artist, traveller, mountaineer, environmentalist and grizzly-bear biologist, who combines her art with wildlife research and advocacy in the Banff area. She studied Interior Design at the University of Manitoba (Bachelor’s degree, 1969), and print-making and drawing at the University of Calgary and the Alberta College of Art in the late 60s and mid-70s. She went on to earn a BFA and MFA at Central Washington University (Ellensburg, WA) in 1978.
She has had several shows at the Whyte Museum of the Rockies in Banff, from the 1980s to the present. Realities Abstracted was held there in 1983. She had travelled to the Himalayan basecamp at Everest, and exhibited pencil drawings of wildlife, such as “Yak in Basecamp”. The drawings contrast large, flat areas of blank white paper for the snowy background, with the detail, volume and presence of the animal. She also travelled to Asia in the 1980s, and her photographs were exhibited in a solo show, A Privileged View of Tibet, in Calgary in 1987, and in Impressions of Japan: Thirteen Travellers at the Gulf Centre, Calgary, in 1986.
She taught Interior Design at Mount Royal University in Calgary for many years, but has also had a career as a field biologist in Banff National Park – continuing the theme of encounters between humans and wildlife. Eastern Slopes Grizzly Bears: Each One is Sacred is part of the exhibit, Bow Biennial (2017-18), again at the Whyte museum. Tracking patterns of bears along the Eastern slopes of the Rockies, she details the bears’ individuality and demonstrates the challenges they face in this high-traffic corridor. Her work features highly-detailed, black and white graphite drawings, or sometimes more stylized, simplified renderings in coloured pencil, such as “Mangi (Bear Spirit)”.
Campbell also writes articles, such as “Grizzly Bear #16, A.K.A. Skoki”, in a Wild Lands Advocate publication (2010). Her works are held at Petro Canada and Mount Royal University in Calgary, and in many private collections.
She has had several shows at the Whyte Museum of the Rockies in Banff, from the 1980s to the present. Realities Abstracted was held there in 1983. She had travelled to the Himalayan basecamp at Everest, and exhibited pencil drawings of wildlife, such as “Yak in Basecamp”. The drawings contrast large, flat areas of blank white paper for the snowy background, with the detail, volume and presence of the animal. She also travelled to Asia in the 1980s, and her photographs were exhibited in a solo show, A Privileged View of Tibet, in Calgary in 1987, and in Impressions of Japan: Thirteen Travellers at the Gulf Centre, Calgary, in 1986.
She taught Interior Design at Mount Royal University in Calgary for many years, but has also had a career as a field biologist in Banff National Park – continuing the theme of encounters between humans and wildlife. Eastern Slopes Grizzly Bears: Each One is Sacred is part of the exhibit, Bow Biennial (2017-18), again at the Whyte museum. Tracking patterns of bears along the Eastern slopes of the Rockies, she details the bears’ individuality and demonstrates the challenges they face in this high-traffic corridor. Her work features highly-detailed, black and white graphite drawings, or sometimes more stylized, simplified renderings in coloured pencil, such as “Mangi (Bear Spirit)”.
Campbell also writes articles, such as “Grizzly Bear #16, A.K.A. Skoki”, in a Wild Lands Advocate publication (2010). Her works are held at Petro Canada and Mount Royal University in Calgary, and in many private collections.