The lyrics of a song made legendary by the iconic Nina Simone might be one of the best windows into the quiet yet driving message of Passages, a new solo exhibition by figurative painter Cydney Camp at M Contemporary Art.

It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me
And I'm feeling good

I'm feeling good

Simone sang the song like no one ever has, every note, every wail, even the silence under her full command. In Passages, we see Camp immersed in a similar quest, unleashing her full creative arsenal  — on canvas and paper blending oil, acrylics,fabric,collage and charcoal —  as a means to explore and share the various elements of life that have her in this moment declaring, like Simone, that she too is “feeling good.’’  

Unlike Simone, Camp, who is in the final phase of completing a master’s degree in painting at Cranbrook Academy of Art, makes no forceful declaration. Instead, she slyly tucks elements of her own personal journey into each of the 16 pieces that comprise the show. The works range in sizes from 9’ 'x 12’’ on paper to a 60’ ’x 48’’ on canvas.

Camp calls the exhibition more of a guided glimpse of a passage, if you will, lifted from one life. “I feel like right now is the most thoughtful I’ve been about painting; about everything in my life,’’ she says. “Some days, it’s a real battle. You’re like,  ‘Duck and cover.’ You’re crying one minute, and then the next you’re not.’’

She adds with a half-laugh: “I feel like I’m always trying to navigate that balance and how to maybe express it all in one painting.’’ 

For Passages, which presents a mixture of portraiture, landscapes and still lifes, Camp relies on vibrant yet slightly cool hues of blues, pinks and greens to anchor viewers into her clear and deep fascination with the human figure and the natural world. 

But do not translate or misread this to mean that Camp wants her paintings to make the viewer calm. She does not paint to please nor pacify. In many ways, the distinctiveness of Cydney Camp’s art, in this show and others, is that she allows herself space to be authentically in and out of control. 

“You can see the speed at which I paint sometimes in some of them. That sense of vitality is important to me,’’ she explains. “Then, there are others that take more time, where you see a lot more texture and attention and care. When I paint like that, I’m feeling good, like I’m accessing the sensation of the moment or some nice memory.’’ 

Camp prides herself on the plunge. Among those closely following the 28-year-old’s still burgeoning career, she is known for powerfully painting the human gaze, especially the eyes of women, straight off the canvas and into your memory. Like Simone’s voice, Camp’s brushstrokes tend toward a buttery yet raw and probing depth. Rarely does a Cydney Camp canvas leave room for 100% neat. Instead, she prefers to take herself to more imaginative edges with the hope that viewers’ eyes are later glad she dared. 

And usually, we are. 

Perhaps that’s the prize of being first self-taught, which Camp was starting only in 2017, and up until 2019 when she ventured into an art class at the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center. The class was ultimately cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic.  Shortly thereafter, Camp was struck by a near debilitating health challenge.  For almost two years, her painting paused. Sketching was the only art that spoke to her. 

Eventually, the sudden surprise ending proved itself proof of one of poet T. S. Eliot’s great claims: “The end is where we start from.’’ 

A doubtful yet determined Camp did just that, first by directing her gaze to the color green (her favorite). For much of 2021, she surrounded herself with the color visually and via a turn to a plant-based diet, both of which she calls a spark, a new beginning. With the exception of two, all of the works on display in Passages were created in 2022, more as an act of reclaiming her practice than any hope of what would become a solo show.

Unknowingly, this journey is part of what the viewer lays eyes on throughout Passages but particularly in “Thicket,” a 60” x 48” painting featuring blending oil, oil stick, and fabric. The painting is essentially a double portrait of one figure lying fully alert, eyes probing, while a smaller sorrowful, twin image, lies nestled beside her with eyes closed, both apparently comforted in a lush bed of grass and flowers.

Says Camp: “When I finally started painting again, I found a release in a different way. I feel like I’m exorcising something, and I see my care for myself in the art now, like I’m renewing myself through my eye for detail and the understanding of allowing myself and my body the space to just to be.’’

Dragonfly out in the sun, you know what I mean, don't you know
Butterflies all havin' fun, you know what I mean
Sleep in peace when day is done, that's what I mean
And this old world is a new world
And a bold world

For me

Now, it should be confessed that Camp herself made no connection to Simone or to the song as muses. Extra full disclosure: The writer doesn’t know whether Camp has ever heard or ever enjoyed any version of Feeling Good. Yet to hear Camp discuss this moment in her art life and the resulting body of work, is to also hear energizing echoes of Simone’s timeless anthem. 

Viewers who choose to look in on Passages, or are maybe even lucky enough to bump into the artist at the exhibition opening, will likely also catch a kernel of the truth of this connection or, perhaps something greater.

For as Camp declares, through this body of work and so much more, “Right now, at the end of the day, I’m just fascinated with life and feeling it all. It’s joyous, and it’s overwhelming.’’

Nichole M. Christian is a writer and veteran journalist. She has worked as creative director, editor and lead writer for the Kresge Foundation’s annual eminent artist monograph series. The titles include: The Culture Keeper, (2022) honoring the life and art of visual storyteller Olayami Dabls; A Palette for The People (2021), honoring painter and educator Shirley Woodson; Wonder and Flow, (2020) honoring ceramicist Marie Woo, and A Life Speaks, (2019) honoring poet and activist Gloria House. Nichole was also coauthor of Canvas Detroit. Her writing also appears in the poetry chapbook, Cypher, summer 2021; Portraits 9/11/01: The Collected Portraits of Grief from The New York Times; the online arts journal, Essay’d; A Detroit Anthology, and Dear Dad: Reflections on Fatherhood.