Matt Coombs

In Matt Coombs most recent work, his aim is to formalize his preoccupation with Youtube conspiracy-theory videos, American history painting, and stand-up comedy. He organises those experiences into visual ratios – a subjective hierarchy – by isolating or boxing-in areas of a painting, scraping away other parts, and forcing different media and techniques into coexistence. Any allusion to structure or figuration in the painting is at once revealed as an interaction of different parts that could fall away or rearrange themselves at any point.

Coombs is interested in the metaphorical capacity of echolalia – the involuntary repetition of vocalizations made by another person – and its relevance to the discourse of contemporary art. He uses various techniques found throughout the rich history of painting, and allows them to repeatedly surface as casual parodies of their own power of illusion.

The images Coombs creates function as placeholders for truth and history. 

Exhibited at Griffin Gallery in Saatchi Showdown: In Glorious Colour in April 2014.

BORN

1988

EDUCATION

BFA - Ringling College of Art & Design, 2013

New York Studio Residency Program, 2012

(Last updated 10.12.2014)