COMPLETED OFFERING: MICHAEL ALEXANDER CAMPBELL

Released 19/12/2025 - 9 AM CET

At just 26 years old, Michael Alexander Campbell is rapidly emerging as one of the most compelling young painters of his generation—an artist whose work has already captured the attention of collectors, curators, and critics. Born in the United Kingdom in 1999 and raised in Switzerland, Campbell’s perspective reflects a synthesis of European sensitivity and New York vitality, merging disciplined and traditional technique with conceptual depth. After earning his BA in Fine Arts with honors from Lancaster University in England, he completed a year-long apprenticeship in New York under Julian Schnabel—one of the most influential painters of the modern era. Campbell has since remained in New York, continuing to work part-time in Schnabel’s West Village studio. This close creative exchange has profoundly shaped Campbell’s understanding of scale, materiality, and the painter’s role as narrator and philosopher.

His inaugural solo exhibition, Sovereign Lapse, held at Casa Del Popolo inside Schnabel’s famed Palazzo Chupi, marked a breakthrough moment in his career. The show earned a coveted review in The Brooklyn Rail, firmly positioning Campbell as a distinctive new voice in contemporary painting. [1] His subsequent solo exhibition, Hansel, Gretel, and Barbie on a Bike, at Luce Gallery in Turin, Italy, Campbell’s solo exhibition drawn significant collector attention, with numerous works sold early in the exhibition. Campbell’s work has also been featured at major international fairs, including Artissima—Italy’s leading contemporary art fair—and  Untitled Art during Miami Art Basel week, and he recently completed two artist residencies: the Edelman Glion Summer Residence Program in Switzerland and another residency in Florence, Italy. Although he has been exhibiting for less than a year, his work has already been shown internationally, with a rapidly growing global audience.

Working primarily in large-scale oil on canvas, Campbell explores the threshold between abstraction and signification, distorting figurative elements until they no longer fulfill their traditional representational function. What remains—vibrant, psychedelic traces of color— forms a metamorphic structure through which viewers navigate the interplay between the artwork’s title, color, form, and meaning. Campbell approaches abstraction in two ways: he either takes an image, a photographic source, or an impression and turns it into abstraction, or he first creates an abstract work and gradually detects glimpses of figuration that lead to subtle signification.

Exhibition List:

·   Upcoming

A show is in discussion in London, UK, for 2026 (not yet confirmed) – Solo Show

A show is scheduled at Villa Magdalena, Madrid, Spain (Opening on Jan 15, 2026) – Solo Show

·   2025

Untitled Art, Luce Gallery, Miami, USA (Dec 2-7, 2025) – Art Fair

Artissima, Luce Gallery, Turin, Italy (Oct 31-Nov 2, 2025) – Art Fair

Hansel, Gretel, and Barbie on a Bike, Luce Gallery, Turin, Italy (Oct 14-Nov 13, 2025) – Solo Show

Roses of Heliogabalus, Mriya Gallery, New York, USA (May 31-Jun 30, 2025) – Group Show

Sovereign Lapse, Casa del Popolo at Palazzo Chupi, New York, USA (Mar 13-26, 2025) – Solo Show

The two paintings we are offering form a conceptual pair. Bacchus—the Roman god of wine and counterpart to the Greek Dionysus—symbolizes not only wine itself but also euphoric states of consciousness and ecstatic modes of celebration. The Bacchanalia, ancient Roman rites held in his honor, were literally wine gatherings in which intoxication, masked as spiritual rite, would lead to liberation as much as distortion of modesty and morals.

In Bacchus, one can distinguish limbs of what seems to be a human figure, beige tones reminding of skin complexion, and the red background symbolizing red wine. The blurriness imitates the wine’s influence on its consumers, covering the senses with a veil of obscurity.

Journey Through the Wine World similarly hints at a bodily form, surrounded by indeterminate shadows whose origins remain elusive. The scene’s uncanny atmosphere and lack of any stable visual anchor generate a surreal space—one in which a mythological journey through the symbolism of wine can unfold.