Thomas Campbell is a self-taught painter, photographer, filmmaker,
and writer. He spends most of his time traversing the globe on surf
trips, making films and shooting photographs, but maintains a small
painting studio in Santa Cruz, California. Campbell’s artworks
combine scribbles and scriptures, taking slogans and anecdotes from
his unique vocabulary and juxtaposing them with a profound look at
human nature. His movement-oriented paintings are as layered with
meaning as they are with paint. The works, typically composed of
several panels, are free flowing with wide expressionist swipes of color,
bold graphics and intricate renderings of characters and text.
Campbell has mounted solo exhibitions in New York, Paris, San
Francisco, Los Angeles, and Morocco. In 1999, he completed his first
feature length surfing film, The Seedling, and in 2004 released his
second, Sprout.