Charles CampbellMaroonscape 1: Cockpit Archipelago, exhibition view, Pérez Art Museum Miami, 2019.
Photo: Mateo Serna Zapata,
courtesy of the artist

Breathing Underwater: Charles Campbell’s Breath Archives

Jayne Wilkinson

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The ocean depths are, famously, the least-known places on Earth: devoid of light, without colour, still largely unmapped, and where all perception must occur through technological distance. Multidisciplinary artist Charles Campbell takes up this speculative space, both imagined and actual, in his recent installation How many colours has the sea (2024). Nine large, luminous aluminum panels, tall and narrow with patterns of vibrant pink, orange, yellow, and blue, punctuate a darkened gallery like thin slices of rainbow cut from indigo walls. A reticulated metal sculpture occupies the airspace; its undulating, angular geometries unfold with a floating rhythm suggesting corals, clouds, or seaweeds. A resonant soundtrack composed of recordings produced by oceanic hydrophones evokes the hypnotic aural effects of moving water, interrupted by the occasional, unsettling sound of a large splash. These immersive contrasts create a feeling of deep reverence, calling to mind the sea as both a metaphorical figure of spirit and renewal and a specific place of mourning.

All this is aesthetically stunning, though somewhat intangible, initially, and it could remain so without recourse to specifics: the linear forms of the hanging sculpture, for example, correspond to bathymetric readings of the Atlantic’s seafloor at the precise point where the African and North American tectonic plates meet. The coloured aluminum panels are audio spectrograms rendered from sound recordings of the breath of Campbell’s friends, colleagues, and community. Through a sophisticated blend of sound, light, form, and colour, the installation conjures two commensurately unrepresentable subjects: the abyssal depths of the ocean floor as a space both imagined and specific, and the unfathomable losses of life that occurred during the Middle Passage.

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