Sorcha Dallas

Within the framework of the Suzie Q projects, Birgid Uccia and Bob van Orsouw are pleased to present – for the first time in Switzerland – works by Henry Coombes (*1977 in London), an artist who lives and works in Glasgow. A selection of Henry Coombes! work could be seen in the Scottish Pavilion Venice Biennale 2007.

Henry Coombes! “eccentric art practice” is comprised of water colors, oils, sculptures and films all the way to installations in which these media are often linked. The grotesque-like combination of materials, the irritating forms and the twist given to familiar contents are the determining factors behind his artistic creations.

The artist!s iconography is rooted in the symbolism of the British nobility, whose class consciousness has led for centuries to repression and conformism. In his drawings, paintings and sculptures, Coombes! alter egos bustle about in cluttered interiors, whose morbidity induces a feeling of malaise. Frequent are the encounters with hunting props and trophies, all of which reflect the hollow forms of imperial supremacy. In Coombes! works, narrowness, guilt, tortuous fantasies and bizarre ways of acting clash with an unbridled desire for freedom. His artistic counterconcept reads like an attempt to undermine existing social orders and make the seemingly harmless conditioning of the individual visible by a depiction of violence and vulnerability.

In Coombes! films, animals played by actors are often portrayed as the protagonists. Unbridled instincts and controlling rationality oppose each other in an irresolvable and tense relationship. Thus in the perverted hunting scenes of the film “Laddy and the Lady” (2006), two dogs played by humans are degraded to devout creatures. Military punishment and abuse are the repressors! response to the dogs! inability to retrieve the quarry. A failure that can also be seen as a decoded form of disobedience, one that the artist tries out himself. The title of his 2006 catalogue “eyes in the front of your head, eyes in the side of your head, eyes in the back of your head, eyes in your head” is provided with an exhortation to chant this list – a tongue-in-cheek instruction for the viewer to practice resistance via a new form of seeing.

Birgid Uccia From the German by Jeanne Haunschild