Campbell Gillespie (she/her) is a photography and fibers artist expected to graduate with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio in 2026. She creates soft sculpture photo books that combine her photography, writing, and fiber practices. She focuses on ideas of death, grief, and diverse funeral practices. Gillespie aims to combine fiber materials that appear soft, comforting, and childlike with her photographs that depict different ideas of death. This includes pictures of cemeteries, preserved insects, family photos of loved ones who have passed, and more. Gillespie attended the Staple and Stich Book Fair in 2024 and is creating artist books and zines to sell. Gillespie is currently exploring diverse bookmaking forms and learning more about death, funeral practices, and grief.
My artwork explores the themes of funeral practices, death, and grief. I utilize fabric, yarn, embroidery thread, buttons, and other materials easily found in a craft store. I specifically use these within a childlike color palette which include pastel greens, pinks, blues and yellows, as well as brighter versions of these colors. Combining these materials with photo prints, allows me to create books varying in texture with these textile materials and paper prints. For my photographs, I use a combination of high-quality and toy cameras made explicitly for children, giving the photos diverse appearances and resolutions. This is important, as the cameras are both representative of childhood and transitioning into adulthood, which speaks to the death I experienced as a child.
I find myself most inspired by funeral practices and how humans deal with the suffering that comes with death. This includes interests in body composting, pet cemeteries, and traditional burial practices. For example, Campbell’s Curse, created in 2024, is a soft sculpture book containing gum bichromate prints pigmented according to the putrefaction process. The photographs include representations of family members who I have lost to death. Each print has its own embroidery, lace, and crochet specific to the image. Overall, This book can express ideas of decomposition while doing so in a way where individuals do not feel so uncomfortable while viewing the work itself.
Currently, I am taking photographs of preserved and taxidermied spiders and insects within my work to explore the idea of the deaths of animals. This further allows me to discuss how these animals are treated within death. I am crocheting and knitting landscapes for the specimen to be placed in, allowing the photographs to feel comforting, even though there are dead spiders and insects within them. My work continues to discover different representations of death, grief, and funeral practices, therefore creating a diversified body of work while still all being connected to death.