A Conversation with the Artist: Melissa English Campbell

Join us for a conversation with artist Melissa English Campbell as she shares her concept behind the works featured in Bodies in Motion. Join us for an engaging conversation with artist Melissa English Campbell as she shares the story, ideas, materials and processes behind her work. Through an informal interview and audience Q&A, gain deeper insight into the exhibition! Bodies in Motion (Currently on view through 10/31/2026) Bodies in Motion balances the strangeness of shifting realities with the familiarity and comfort of textiles. It is a partially immersive installation evoking proximity to textiles such as a warm towel or playing near blankets and sheets on a clothesline. The exhibition emerged when artist Melissa English Campbell recognized her tendency to mirror others’ accents, tone, and mannerisms as an unconscious survival strategy; a frequent adaptive response often shared by immigrants and their daughters. This experience is expressed through warp painted weavings presented in mirrored pairs. While images repeat, each work retains its own character, creating larger compositions that hold similarity and difference in productive tension. Panels are suspended throughout the gallery and on the walls, the textiles absorb sound and sway gently with air currents and passing bodies. Water recurs as a central motif, reflecting the fluid nature of identity and the body’s search for both challenge and comfort, as well as sanctuary from social expectations. Through repetition, comfort and strangeness, mirroring, and movement, Bodies in Motion invites viewers to consider identity not as fixed, but as something continuously shaped by adaptation, belonging, and change. Melissa English Campbell (b. 1969, San Francisco) holds a B.S. in Environmental Design from the University of California, Davis, and an MFA in Studio Arts from Kent State University. Her artwork has been exhibited globally, including at the Royal Albert Museum in the UK, Seoul, South Korea; Como, Italy; and New South Wales, Australia. Nationally, Melissa’s work has been shown at galleries such as San Jose Museum of Textiles, Columbus Museum of Craft, New Bedford Art Museum, Museum of Texas Tech University; Petaluma Center for the Arts, Hand Weaving Museum, and Contemporary Craft. She is a recipient of the Award of Excellence from the Ohio Council for the Arts. Recent artist residencies include The Chautauqua Institutes Artist Residency, Vermont Studio Center, Praxis TC2 Residency, and Berea College Artist Residency. Campbell currently lives and works in Northeast Ohio. Photo: Feet in Fawn Lake (detail), Courtesy of the Artist