PRESS RELEASE
“Marlene Campbell: Prairie Printmaker”
April 4 - 30, 2003

Featured at Lyghtesome Gallery for the month of April is a selection of limited edition prints by Marlene Campbell, an artist from Winnepeg, Manitoba. Marlene Campbell first submitted work to the gallery at the suggestion of former Antigonish resident and fellow artist, Angus Braid, who now lives in Winnepeg. Subsequently several of her smaller etchings were a part of the annual Printmakers Show held at Lyghtesome Gallery in August of last year. The collection of fourteen new prints in the April 2003 Show consists of both etchings and linocuts, handcoloured and black and white, and includes a print of the etching entitled “Unfolding the Past” that was selected to be a part of the Winnipeg Art Gallery Permanent Collection.

Marlene Campbell was born in Roblin, Manitoba, graduated from the University of Manitoba School of Art in May 1994, with a major in Printmaking and continued her studies in Waterless Lithography with Nik Semenoff at the University of Saskatchewan in 1997. Her work has been shown in several recent exhibitions, including the Winnipeg Art Gallery Grand Jury 5, MACAC Women in Agriculture, and the Mini-Print Exhibition at the Dundarave Print Gallery in Vancouver, B.C., and was featured in a solo exhibition in 2000 at the Medea Gallery in Winnipeg. Campbell works in watercolour, pastel, acrylic painting and printmaking in her home studio and in her studio in Winnipeg’s Exchange District and her work is represented in three different galleries in Winnipeg.

Marlene Campbell describes her work as “figure narrative based”. Inspired by myth, archetypal female imagery, and issues of consciousness, she develops “personal statements that reflect life experiences, merging time and myth with today’s reality”. The subtle beauty of the prairie landscape often serves as backdrop to these sometimes humorous, thought-provoking images.
The Marlene Campbell exhibit runs from April 4 - 30 and will be followed by the Sixteenth Annual Invitational Flowers to Fruit exhibit at Lyghtesome Gallery in May.