Matthew Campbell, a senior graphic design major, debuted his student gallery on Friday, Sep. 15, after a year-long creative process to portray what he called “an immersive gallery experience.” “Arid” is a combination of Campbell’s artistic passions, as it includes visual graphics elements, an original screenplay and an extended play (EP) with the same name. The debut took place at John Brown University, where a large number of students, professors and general guests enjoyed Campbell’s graphic art, a live performance of his EP and a guest DJ that completed the ambience for what Campbell’s felt like a “successful debut.”
According to Campbell, Arid is inspired by those seasons in our lives that feel like a desert, where we’re living in apathy and struggling to see ourselves. “It was really inspired by where I was at spiritually, mentally, in my relationships with people. I was just very not myself. And ultimately how the Lord sustained me through that and the growth that happens through those seasons,” Campbell said. “It’s an encouragement to embrace those desert moments,” he added.
The three-part concept: EP, physical gallery and screenplay, while all interconnected, is also meant to be able to work on its own. Campbell declared this was the biggest challenge to achieve, but ultimately felt he was able to pull it off. “I think you can appreciate each thing and find easter eggs in each thing, but if you engage with all three, you’ll have a different experience every time you do,” Campbell said. “The gallery was made to be experienced several times,” he stated.
Although the execution of this extensive project started last February, Campbell shared that this idea of an experience that “exists beyond a gallery itself” had been on his mind for almost six years. Campbell has been doing music since 2018 and wanted to create art that resonated with people and made them wrestle with the ideas they were exposed to; something that draws people to revisit them. “I also always wanted to write a screenplay and I was seeking ways to make that happen,” he said.
Campbell also knew he couldn’t create this project alone. “I felt I was hitting a wall [in my music] with just what I can create and there’s a lot of things that I wanted to articulate through the music, sonically, in the way the production would be that I couldn’t do myself,” he said. Campbell recruited Jake Thomas, a senior entrepreneurship major, to work with him in the music production, establishing a collaboration that for Campbell felt like “the missing piece that [he] need it in [his] music.”
Thomas, artistically known as Jake’s Balloon, shared that he was first approached by Campbell to work on one song. After their first collab, however, Campbell explained to him the bigger picture of his project and that’s how Thomas tagged along to produce the rest of the EP. The two instantly clicked, with Campbell simply explaining the direction he envisioned and articulating a few adjectives, and Thomas being able to craft music that fit the emotions Campbell wanted to communicate. “Matthew’s creative vision is really strong and his drive to get things done was something I was able to pulled from. I probably spent around 200 hours working on the music,” Thomas said.
The collaboration was significant in their artistic journey for the both of them, filled with trust, similar music tastes and artistic vision. “It was a safe environment where we could express our concerns and we got it done. We really feel this is only the beginning for us working together,” Campbell said. The duo is already making progress for taking Arid to the next step, working with an arranger to write out a live version of the EP.
The EP also features other JBU students and alumni that contributed with vocals as well as in the music composition, including guitar and cello solos. Campbell’s vision was to incorporate a choir kind of-feel vocal. Thomas invited Chapel band members and other musicians on campus that were eager to help the both of them in their project. “People did it out of the goodness of their heart and that made it really special. We gave them the overall idea and, in that way, we got a little bit of each person’s unique playing style and personality on each of the tracks,” Thomas said. Some of the featured students were Carson Moon, Handel Justus, Jace Richardson, Jake Thomas, Joel Castaneda, Zipporah Jones, Zoe Ward and Danny Friesen. The EP was mixed and mastered at John Brown University.
“Arid: a gallery experience” will be on display at the East Windgate Visual Arts building until Monday, Sep. 18. The EP is available on all streaming platforms and a digital copy of the screenplay is available at matthewcampbell.co/arid.
Photos courtesy of Sofia Santana