For today’s seminar we had a talk from Dan Coombs, one of the tutors here at UEL. I have visited Dan Coombs studio in the first year of university, so I’m quite familiar with his work. I have also done a re-creation of his work, so it is nice to see how his work has developed and changed over the past two years.
Due to COVID-19 and the lockdown, Dan Coomb’s work has changed quite a bit. Where his work used to have vibrant, unique landscapes, they now are completely black. Coombs explained that he made the change to black ink because of the lockdown. Personally, I really admire this change, it really captures just how much of a change COVID had been of all of us. The once sunny sky where we are free to go out and enjoy people’s company is gone. We now are in a looming pit of darkness with no-where to go and no sense of light at the end of the tunnel.
Coomb’s work is based on collage, something I am currently experimenting with in my own work. He described the process as separating the composition from the execution, his goal it to make this place and figures a timeless space, like he renaissance nude paintings are out of time. I would say that this affect is captured remarkably well in these pieces from the use of the waviness of the figures that he has altered to make the image appear less flat. He says he is interested in the unconscious communication of these figures, through their body language.
When I look at Commb’s work, I get this overwhelming feeling of uncomfortable laziness, the type where you are too sluggish to even move, but there’s still this burning uncomfortableness about it. It’s like when you’re lying on a beach and it’s too hot, you feel relaxed, but also like you are melting. There is this really nice affect of the figures melting throughout Coomb’s works, coupled with a vibrant landscape it really captures this sense of the loss of time, wastage of time as all these figures let it pass by unattached.
It is clear that Commb’s work has been influenced by Artist Geoff Wall as he too uses collage for his images, often shown behind light boxes. His piece “A sudden gust of wind” shows papers flying through the sky, each one being taken separately and constructed together, the process taking over a year to complete.
Coombs mentioned a few other artists, but I plan to go into depth about their works in my journal as I have been inspired by their methods.
The seminar ended with a debate around the combination of photoshop and collage. I agreed with Dan coombs message, the combination should be encouraged, to create a whole different image with the mixture of medium. I plan to try this combination out in the future, especially now that I have the equipment to do it.
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