Campbell Patterson

SCREENING IN THE REAR WINDOW

In 2016, Campbell Patterson made Escape#1, a moving image work that recorded the artist repeatedly climbing through the window of his home in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. The following year, Patterson was awarded the 12-month Frances Hodgkins Fellowship at the University of Otago Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka. During his year living in Ōtepoti Dunedin, the exhibition call sick was held at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery (17 June – 1 October 2017), an exhibition underpinned by the concept of a sick day, specifically the kind used when you are not actually sick. This project brought together two new bodies of work and allowed Patterson to expand the Escape series – bridging across Tāmaki Makaurau and Ōtepoti. Escape #2 and Escape #3 were filmed at his flat and at the fellow’s studio, both in Ōtepoti. Running consecutively in the Rear Window gallery over the coming months, all three works show Patterson wearing only a pair of comically large grey trackpants, as he repeatedly climbs in and out of the windows of the three different buildings. Often drawing on his everyday experience and surroundings, this series reflects themes within Patterson’s wider practice – performance, improvisation, humour, endurance, risk, pain, compulsion, and absurdity.

Screening schedule:

Escape #1:
21 July – 24 August 2025

Escape #2:
25 August – 21 September  2025

Escape #3:
22 September – 26 October 2025