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“I am a self-taught artist, born, raised, bread,
buttered and spread in Charleston, South
Carolina.” Leroy Campbell spent a great deal
of time in Moncks Corner in the backwoods of
South Carolina where “my feet felt the heat
from the red clay roads in the summer. Moncks
Corner introduced me to cornfields, well water,
hominy grits, okra, gumbo, bread pudding,
collard greens, sweet potato pie and black
eyed peas.” Campbell says his works are
respectively named after food, because he
considers the works to be food for the soul, for
himself and for collectors. “My granddaddy was
a neckbone kinda man. A Joe Neckbone, a
man whose face caressed by the burning flesh
of the sky, his head covered with snow-white
halos. He had a tobacco smile, a gullah
dialect, a neckbone heart and a black eyed
peas spine.”
This man is the quintessential renaissance artist.
Leroy Campbell’s passion for life is captured in
the insightful and intuitive portrayal of his
subjects. Each of Leroy’s seven ongoing series
depicts a specifically unique and touching
experience of Campbell’s life. The Neckbone
series allows him to revisit the past in South
Carolina with poignant snapshots of everyday
family life in the city and in the rural south. His
subjects, proud, God-fearing and self reliant,
are the backbones of the African American
community. The instantaneous recognition of
“Joe Neck Bone and Joe Neck Bone Jr.” and
other members of the Neck Bone family evoke
immediate feelings of kinship.
Campbell’s originals are created in a collage
mixed medium of charcoal, pastels, acrylics,
fabric, and ink on arches cover acid free rag
paper. His artwork is identified by silhouetted,
elongated figures with long necks. The figures
are without noses and eyes; they only have
mouths. Leroy quotes, “This allows my clients to
place their own faces of others they know, love,
touched and have laughed with in my art.” His
gifted use of color both excites and mesmerizes
his clients. His rich multiple media technique is
engaging and electrifying. While simplicity is the
hallmark of Leroy Campbell’s artwork, spirituality
is its underpinning.
Leroy Campbell lives in Brooklyn, New York and
is published exclusively by Bentley House Fine
Art Publisher of Walnut Creek and distributed
worldwide.
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