Lavielle Campbell:

“My work is reactionary. It’s about feelings and perceptions. It is definitely social.”—Lavialle Campbell

A Los Angeles-born artist, Lavialle Campbell has shared her actively expressive stance since Kindergarten. But creative expression has always been more than a stance for her, it has been a “compulsion to create.” And this is evident in every piece of work that the artist has given life to in her creative path. From the meticulously arranged beadwork, through the colorful quilts and the glazed earthenware, to the powerful mixed media installations, every artwork speaks with passion, honesty and directness. Yet the voice in Lavialle Campbell’s work is not solely the voice of an individual African-American woman artist in Los Angeles, but the voice of her ancestry, the voice of the African-American community dealing with the reality of prejudice and discrimination. “Because I am a woman, African-American, and a female artist, issues of my ‘otherness’ in the art world are varied and at times extreme,” the artist says.

The issue of exclusion and “otherness” has a powerful presence in Lavialle Campbell’s work included in “Transitions.” Her mixed-media installations deal with the artist’s very personal experience of breast cancer, shaped against the background of the larger social issue of African-American women’s disadvantaged position in dealing with the disease. The inadequate health care many women of color face denies the cancer-stricken women an early detection and treatment of the disease, thus decreasing their chances of survival. Lavialle Campbell reminds us of this disturbing reality in our 21st century America.
The artwork presented here has also helped the artist live through the dramatic changes in her own reality and has further helped her heal the emotional wounds from the experience. Six years after her encounter with breast cancer, Lavialle Campbell presents her work on the experience not simply as a reminder of her individual past, but as a powerful expression of the present reality of many women currently dealing with the horrific disease. The wounds are healed, but not forgotten. Yet, the artist has embraced, and continues to embrace herself as a perfect whole.

Looking at Lavialle Campbell’s work makes us ponder over some important questions—how is the woman who has experienced breast cancer valued by our society absurdly obsessed with breasts? Is the woman survivor less of a woman because she does not have two breasts? Is a woman’s worth represented solely by her physical being? These questions surpass the boundary of breast cancer and relate to every woman’s condition in our society, they relate to us, and it is our turn as viewers to answer them.