Todd Camplin

My work is about abstracting text into objects/images. I start with the text because words have always mystified me. I read some words backward, I drop prefixes and suffixes to words when I am reading, plus I read a few letters backward. So, for me to read anything, I must approach a text by the process of repetition. After I have read a text a few times, the meaning changes; I can clear up the visual impairments through the act of repeating the readings. Something similar happens with my artwork. When I start with a text, those words have a meaning, but after my process of repetition, the text becomes an object/image with a new and truer meaning. The truth of a word or text goes beyond our language's ability to illuminate us fully. St.Thomas Aquinas marked out the word 'being' to show that language is not fully sufficient in explaining the truth of a word like 'being.' My work essentially marks out text through abstraction. My abstract objects/images become the unsayable truth of any text.

This gallery is my Ode to Endangered and Extinct Languages. I am dedicating each piece to a long gone language or languages that are disappearing.