Stromness Library, Stromness, Orkney, until 27 June

Work by Denise Campbell.

DENISE CAMPBELL is Tasmanian artist and printmaker. She first came to Orkney in the nineties, and has exhibited here often; but this exhibition is a departure for her. Rather than looking at the Orkney landscape, she’s moved behind, as it were, into the history which connects us to the other side of the world. She’s been energised by the Franklin story, and what we’re seeing is really work in progress – there may be more meditations on ships and bills of lading and journeys to come.

We’re a stone’s throw away, in the fine little Stromness Library space, from the well where Erebus and Terror watered before they made the fateful trip north, and it’s fitting that her work should be shown here. The interesting thing about this show however is that it’s not at all what you might expect. Think Franklin and you think cold, you think frostbite and starvation and lead poisoning and silver cutlery strewn about the Arctic wastes.

Here we have warm colours, ochres and reds and raw sienna. There is the precision one might expect from a printer, the lure of lines and squares and text. Yes, there are a series of five canvas sails in cool washes – complete with brass eyelets, and shaped as if they are filling with wind, about to set off – but the works on paper tell a whole different story, one that Orcadians might not know much about.

John Franklin ran a penal colony in Tasmania. He didn’t run it very well. His wife Jane – that indomitable female – didn’t enjoy it much. She found the company tedious. During his watch, native Tasmanians were hunted, pushed to extinction. He was the embodiment of white rule; it’s a period in his life we perhaps prefer to gloss over. Like Scott after him, he’s remembered for the glorious folly of his undertakings – how British, to fail so spectacularly!

Campbell wants to remove the characters from the story and get to the essence. This show falls into two parts – the Arctic and the Antipodean. She’s interested in ‘duality – the connections between two worlds… and a celebration of the human spirit’. Franklin, she says, set out on his last journey with doubts – he was old and ailing, and must have known the dangers. But ‘he had the courage to step out of the known, into the darkness.’

The large canvas sails have a gentle feel; she has her own lexicon of symbols – a red diamond stands for Franklin; diamonds generally mean death. There are red dots and maps of the North West passage. Text is used, upside down, sideways, – a nod perhaps to the endless crossing over of letters, sorting, arranging. There is a sense of journey; but this isn’t visceral work. You don’t feel the frostbite. It feels polite.

The works on paper are more compelling, because I suspect she’s inhabiting her own vernacular and it frees her up. I thought at first – how un-Scottish this palette is! It reminded me of Aboriginal textures and patterns. The introduction of hot colours and text which memoralises Tasmanian native culture (you’ll see the word spirit recur) gives these pieces an urgency which is interesting.

Remembrance is about extinction – the spidery text, boat-shaped, but not strong, signifies the spirit of a valley which is about to be destroyed to make way for a pulp mill. The undercurrent of violence and violation which was a part of our enthusiastic colonisation of the Rest Of The World, and which Franklin was happy to be part of, is touched on here.

It’s a great theme to work with. To be honest though – much as I like the overlapping shiplap timbers and the mapping, and the earthy colours – I didn’t understand the passion behind the pieces till I spoke to the artist. I also missed a lovely detail, and I suspect others will too – the paper is embossed with detail of the cargo the ships carried -and you just don’t see it.

This artist needs to free up and be braver. Campbell talks compellingly about duality – black and white, darkness, extremity, and its opposite, heat and warmth; yellow is life for her, a foil for blackness. This show is work in progress. I look forward to a bold big exploration.

© Moray MacInnes, 2009

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• Denise Campbell