Born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1956, Leroy Campbell discovered his artistic talent when, after he had started tracing comic book characters when he was 8, he could draw his favorite super hero from memory. His mixed media works, created with acrylics, fabrics, charcoal, and pastels, use vivid colors to depict positive images of family life. A self-taught artist, Campbell lists his influences as Romare Bearden, Faith Ringgold, Norman Rockwell, and Jacob Lawrence. The characters in Campbell's work are dark, "richly-melanated" silhouettes with elongated necks, no eyes or noses, only mouths, in order to allow viewers to see their own faces or the faces of loved ones. Campbell is also unusual in that he tears the edges of his paintings to give them a unique texture.
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