- Venue
- Fine Art Society Ltd
- Location
- London
Heaven and Earth most likely derives its title from the name of the empty space in between the two worlds, known in some cultures as purgatory, and others as the middle world. The exhibition of work certainly lives up to the title, as the paintings invite viewers into the abstracted surroundings whereas the modified figures are in contrast, nervous.
A relationship between figure and their environments have caused many of Coombs’ work to be interpreted as religious and reminiscent of scenes depicting Adam and Eve in Garden of Eden scenarios which thus can interpret the majority of the paintings as explorations of guilt, beauty, and fear of isolation. Initially Coombs’ figures are derived from life drawing manuals, magazines and catalogues and their presence on their canvases appear homely, though sometimes distant from the viewer as if submitting to the eye of God watching them.
His palette is borderline fauvist as he represents his canvas scenery’s and populations as delightfully colourful and fantastically dream-like. With bold flat strokes of paint from the brush, Coombs’ shades illuminate their canvases against the fictitious surreal landscapes that offer anything from rock formations and botanical gardens to waterfalls and interior spaces. Although to date Coathangers (2010) remains his only interior painting, its position amongst his other paintings is a powerful one as a defining central patriarchal figure to its other inventive, imaginative paintings.
The language between painting and collage are found in Coombs’ work as creations; hybrids of ideals and delusions; questioning the viewer as to whether Coombs is applauding either the figures or environments, or dispensing a critique of Utopian ideologies that are now abstracted by the company of godly idols that similarly are neither male nor female.
For this, the elements of Coombs’ paintings are wavering their symbolism yet permitting themselves to inspiration from early Modernist primitivism, Gauguin and Matisse with dark twists and psychedelic colours. Further stimulus such as Hindu and Christian religion and the carnival play on memories of reincarnation and existence beyond the afterlife.
