“JCM (Jonathon Campbell Mills)lives and works in central Bristol, UK. He produces original artwork, paintings, sculpture and installations, and has won awards and commissions for his large-scale works…” Read on: jonathoncampbellmills.com
We’re meeting at a charming historic pub in Bristol, England called The Highbury Vaults…Jonathon goes there often. Legend has it that some death row inmates were brought there for their last meal before being hanged on a nearby hilltop in 1840. My blood runs cold as he tells me this. Better not to think about it. We sit down, order a beer and start talking.
Ideally, you know? Actually we’re chatting on Facebook.
I imagined the meeting.
Jonathon Campbell Mills and a poster on the wall of The Highbury Vaults Pub
I’m a painter who is engaged, right now, in the process of making work. It’s a brutal business that requires something of me to initiate a new and fresh idea. It’s not a process I enjoy. And when the last work is made, I don’t think there will be anything left.
(-Hoppípolla background music playing while we drink and chat )
By nature, I observe contentious subjects ranging from war, violent aggression, racial inequality, gender ambiguity, marginalization, oppression and exclusion. From my perspective, the work I make is for many young friends struggling and suffering, and for those no longer with us, I think because some of them believed in me.
Jonathon Campbell Mills: No Earth Beneath My Feet. an exhibition exploring migration, displacement and identity." Suffia Khanan
You can use a poem, song, a quote, a movie, a piece of art, one of your ones, or others, to do it.
I’m not a fan of the social media cult of ‘inspirational quotes’. But I am moved by thoughts that project the power of creativity.
‘Do you know why that painting is here? So that no one forgets. So that someday, everyone will know what they died for.’ ‘The Third of May 1808’ - Francisco Goya
Yea it matters to me. For all the obvious reasons. I get plenty of online grief, mostly ‘stay in your lane’ type comments but you gotta say what you gotta say, right? I also have a pretty neat Spiderman t shirt!!
I see you like these following expressions: ‘Art Resists’ ‘Art as witness’ ‘Art that Kills’. What about them?
Art that Kills is a written & graphical work by George Petros and latterly a brand slogan appropriated by a Hollywood fashion house. It makes brutal reading so I won’t go into detail here. However, it is a sentiment that resonates with me and a sounding board that I measure each piece I make against. Will this piece knock the viewer flat? Will it bite them? Is it a troubling work? I don’t always succeed in making ‘Art That Kills’, but so what. I believe Art is an engagement and a window to open up the issues that should be tackled all the time.
There is a point I want to make with each work. A point that almost everyone will miss. But I’ll make it anyway.
So I have a few favourite painters including Tala Madani. Tagreed Dargouth is a friend, Kiefer,Leon Golub, Adrian Ghenie, Kara Walker
Arts and artist liked by Jonathon Campbell Mils
, and I love the work ‘Mother’ by Nir Hod.
all these artists are so much better than me but they give me something to strive for.
A couple of years back I was talking with some Kurdish guys in Turkey. One of the guys didn’t speak English so we were using my phone to translate our conversation. He tapped something in. The English translation read: ‘We are Always Dying’. This Still haunts me.
Art by Jonathon Campbell Mills
What’s about: Feeding the Ghosts?
‘Feeding the Ghosts’ is the title of a recent work and also the title for my next show.
I Feel like fate pushed me in the direction of making this work. I watched a documentary about the correct attribution accorded to Scottish Artist David Martin for the painting ‘Portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay and Lady Elizabeth Murray’.
The 2013 movie ‘Belle’, with some artistic license, tells the story of this work with the sinking of the slave ship ‘Zong’ woven into the story. Tom Hardy’s 2017 series ‘Taboo’ alludes to a similar ship and finally I watched Orlando Jones blistering soliloquy in American Gods. All over the period of a few days, ‘Feeding the Ghosts’ is named for the historical novel by Fred D’Aguiar, based on the real events surrounding the slave ship Zong in 1781. D’Aguiar layers his story with symbolism, chiefly involving the sea, physical movement such as dancing, and the nature of memory.
The painting I think, shows a dance of sorts. A continuous rhythm.
The books’ epilogue notes that the ghosts of the Zong remain with us, everywhere.
JCM artist in Bristol. Ranom pics from his websites and facebook/instagram
What about you Monument to a Protest? You was speaking about the Edward Colston Statue: The statue of the 17th century slave merchant that was pulled down on 7 June 2020 following a Black Lives Matter march, before being rolled into Bristol harbour.
Tell me more
You say on your website:
Edward Colston Statue: The statue of the 17th century slave merchant was pulled down on 7 June 2020 following a Black Lives Matter march, before being rolled into Bristol harbour. I was there to support the march; the site is located close to my home in central Bristol. I’m an advocate of ‘Art as witness’ but creating a piece showing the toppling of Colston seemed unnecessary, the act was well documented on the day.
Still A Slave. And Details from Monument to a Protest, inspirated by Edward Colston Statue
Well, I was there to support the march, the site is located close to my home in central Bristol. I’m an advocate of ‘Art as witness’, but creating a piece showing the toppling of Colston seemed unnecessary, the act was well documented on the day.
Hours later I walked back up through College Green and took some shots of the aftermath, the detritus, the residue of the day. It was quiet and the trampled leaflets and posters, and footprints in the muddy grass, all seemed poignant somehow.
A few days later I walked down to look again at the site. The statue plinth now empty, just a lump of metal and stone, a banal thing. This for me, seemed a subject to make a painting of. I took some shots and made the series; ‘Monument to a Protest’ over the weeks of July and August that year. A small piece of writing remained on the side of the plinth when I photographed it, it read... ‘Still a Slave’.
What about (your) future?
Is the world going to shit? Yes it is. Although I continue to be an optimist “through necessity” Pessimism is not the road to take. I live in an area owned by Bristol University, so loads of young students around. We have young people from across the world. They all queue tgether in the local coffee shop for drinks and snacks, talking, laughing and generally looking amazing. It’s a good vibe. I think, seek joy. As for my future, the next work I make is going to be the best.
