Oona Campbell | Evening Light on the Loch
2006, oil on linen, 5 x 6 ft (152 x 183 cm)

Oona Campbell | Sea Storm 1
2005, oil on canvas, 8 x 8 ins (20 x 20 cm)

Oona Campbell | Near the Three Lochs (Ardnamurchan) 12
2006, oil on board, 8 x 10 ins (20 x 25 cm)

Oona Campbell | Windswept Coastline (Hebrides)
2005, oil on canvas, 4 x 6 ft (122 x 183 cm)

Oona’s technical handling of paint is superb. She may work on several paintings at a time, washing, glazing, scumbling, layer upon layer of pigment, waiting weeks for the paint to dry before returning to the work. The paint is applied thickly, lusciously and daringly over careful under-washes of colour. But the surface is never muddied. She is a master at juxtaposing discordant colours which make the canvas resonate. A brilliant streak of orange illuminates layers of crimson and purple. A sudden dollop of creamy white indicates surf as it pounds on the dark rocks. A flash of barium yellow floods the moor with a finger of sunlight through a gap in the cloud. She is not afraid to push the paint to the very limit, applying it wet on wet, working with brushes, rags, palette knives, even her fingers. Her depth of feeling combined with her technical skill in recalling an actual sense of place enables these paintings to hold their own in a romantic tradition which began with Turner and continues today.

Notes by Elspeth Moncrieff for Broughton Gallery, April 2006