MONA & BLUE BRIDGE: Eva Campbell’s prophetic 2005-7 instant classic selfportrait diptych as Mona Lisa with Johnson Street Bridge: quirky, surreal, dynamic realistic figuration: Eva-Mona’s enigmatic smile, inspired by Leonardo da Vinci, seems to say ‘Save Joseph Strauss’ bascule.’ VOTE NO! Nov 20 Vic referendum. FIX IT!

MONA AND BLUE BRIDGE:

SELF PORTRAIT BY EVA CAMPBELL

Diptych inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa

Johnson Street Bridge is in the background, left

 

This quirky diptych painting by Canada’s Eva Campbell of Victoria on Vancouver Island, is entitled Mona and  Blue Bridge.

  Eva Campbell uses a realistic technique with a surrealistic sensibility to produce the desired verisimilitude and figurative dynamism that is a characteristic of her unique style.

In this humourous and thought-provoking painting, Eva Campbell imagines herself as the woman who posed for one of the most famous painters ever, the great Italian genius Leonardo da Vinci, in his classic Mona Lisa painting, now in the Louvre, I believe.

Victoria’s famous Inner Harbour and our very own threatened Joseph Strauss-designed bascule bridge are seen in the background, behind the artist, who shows herself wearing a bright red jacket.

Mona and Blue Bridge was painted by Eva Campbell between 2005 and 2007 and is on the cover of Victoria’s free weekly Monday Magazine in full colour today, just a little over a week away from the November 20 Referendum – Byelection which will help determine the fate of this beloved heritage bascule bridge and that of the stupid philistine socialist municipal government that strangely wants to destroy and replace it.

Notwithstanding what I wrote yesterday in this blog about Monday being an intellectually mediocre hedonistic materialistic non-alternative fixture of the decadent Establishment, I must credit the decision of whoever was responsible in deciding to put this beautiful, classic, provocative and topical Eva Campbell painting on their cover this week. 

By putting Mona and Blue Bridge, a prophetic and very powerful painting in the classic realistic symbolist style of Victoria painter-educator Eva Campbell on page one, Monday Magazine finally got it right for once, tapping into the zeitgeist for renewal of respect for traditional art forms, radical restraint, using art to advance social justice, conservation, common sense and prudent stewardship of our fiscal and heritage infrastructure resources.

Muchas Gracias, Brava Eva!

ENCOUNTERS: EVA CAMPBELL

EVA CAMPBELL: BACK TO FOREVER: $800

EVA CAMPBELL: GIRL WITH ORANGE

EVA CAMPBELL: BIRTHDAY CHILD

 

VICTORIA’S BEST REALISTIC, ROMANTIC, SYMBOLIST AND SURREALISTIC FIGURATIVE ARTISTS:

A PERSONAL LIST OF GOYO DE LA ROSA’S FAVOURITES 

 

EVA CAMPBELL: LAUGHING

 

Eva Campbell is one of only about 12 people that I consider to be the best figurative artists in Victoria.

These are all artists who use the human figure as their primary source of inspirational muse, subject and theme.

While I’m not sure how I would place these people numerically in this very personal pantheon of our greatest figurative artists in Victoria at this time, I believe that Eva Campbell is a very signficant figurative artist of  even wider global significance, and her work should be studied carefully by anyone anywhere who is interested in the growing realistic or academic figurative painting movement, which manifests itself in various hybrid schools like Romantic Realism, High Realism, Pre-Raphaelitic Realism, Symbolistic Realism, Surrealistic Realism, Fantastic Realism and Psychedelic Realism and Hyperrealism.

Eva Campbell is also easily classified, for those who like this sort of thing, in the ‘women painting women’ category of Art History, and should be found, if she is not already, at FIGURATION FEMININE, a wonderful website by the French artist-art historian Myrtille Henrion Picco, full of full colour photographs of paintings by women painting other women or, often, themselves in self portraits, such as the one we are displaying to start this article off…

VIRGINIA SMALLFRY’S SELFPORTRAIT:

AS A SYMBOLIST SPHYNX

Her  female companions in this pantheon would certainly include Darlene Gait, Tara Juneau, Virginia SmallFry, Rachel Bermann, Linda Darby, Linda Lindsay and Anna Mah.

DARLENE GAIT: BABY BOY

Eva Campbell’s male counterparts among the best figurative artists in Victoria would have to include Miles Lowry, Paul Dishaw, Ron Parker, and Darcy Gould. 

‘Goyo de la Rosa’ [Gregory Paul Michael Hartnell]

Editor of these fine public interest websites:

ROCKLAND: davidjure.wordpress.com

‘Goyo de la Rosa’ and ‘David Jure’: Wiccatoria Scene in passing

 

GREGORY PAUL MICHAEL HARTNELL:

gregoryhartnell.wordpress.com

A.K.A. CONCERNED CITIZENS’ COALITION WEBLOG

(formerly CCC BLOG)

 

LA ROSA REVUE:

‘Goyo de la Rosa’s Transcultural Arts Revue:

goyodelarosa.wordpress.com

 

victoria city council should not tear this heritage bridge down, but save it... VOTE NO!