Thomas Campbell

American, b. 1969

Thomas Campbell was among the many artists included in the 2005 exhibition Beautiful Losers: Contemporary Art and Street Culture, along with the associated book and 2008 documentary film that encapsulated a new contemporary art movement. For the first time a group of artists
came to the forefront of American art that reflected the aesthetics and attitudes of the “street” subcultures (hip-hop, punk rock, skateboarding, surfing, and graffiti) from which they had come.

Born in Laguna Beach in 1969, Campbell grew up in Dana Point, California. A peripatetic traveler, he has visited sixty countries and lived for short periods in Africa, Europe, and New York. He has been based in Santa Cruz, California, for the last thirty years. Campbell works in a number of mediums including, painting, sewing, ceramics, photography, and filmmaking. Ceramics residencies at Fullerton College, Fullerton, California, in 2015, and at the Caine College of the Arts at Utah State University in 2019, allowed him to experiment with clay in unprecedented ways.