Jon Campbell - Wolfen (2021)

I spent 22 years feeling disconnected and set apart, from ages 15 to 37. I believe that in sharing the story of that trouble and how I overcame it, I may be able to reach others who are in trouble, the way that music and art helped me stay afloat at times during those years when it felt like I wasn’t going to survive.

This story deals with personal trauma, concluding with the trauma we all experienced in 2020, which ironically had coincided with what was the greatest healing I’ve ever experienced; I felt “fixed” at the same moment the world broke, so I feel a responsibility now to give back what I can, especially because I had neglected art for many years prior.

Sometimes art reflects life and sometimes life reflects art. The latter happens especially when the world doesn’t know how to move forward. I don’t really know how the world moves forward now but I have an idea about how not to.

Wolfen is a story told from the perspective of a character of that same name, imagining that instead of a nickname which was then replaced by “Jon Campbell”, that Wolfen has always lived alongside me; the part that is a “lone wolf”, whose early childhood friends asked their mothers to pick them up from my house early because I insisted on just drawing instead of engaging with them. It’s the part of me that wants to run away from any long-term relationship and opt for the solitude of my studio. Wolfen is also an album: a collection of 8 songs, 7 videos, paintings, drawings, images and texts which tell his story.