exhibition

Bacchanalia

Justin Coombes

03.Dec.05 - 13.Dec.05
Wed-Sun 12-6 or by appt

Contemporary Art Projects
20 Rivington St
London EC2A 3DU
020 7739 1743
info@caprojects.com
www.caprojects.com
Tube Old Street, Liverpool Street, Shoreditch / Hoxton

Justin Coombes makes colour photographs by projecting images onto buildings and interiors at night with a small slide-projector. In real time, the naked eye can hardly discern an image, but Coombes photographs these scenes using long exposures.

The resulting luscious, colour-saturated images undermine expected readings of ‘realist’ photography. The projections veer from being pin-sharp and mirage-like to ghostly and ethereal, but always have a strange relationship to the scene in which they appear.

Coombes is influenced by Surrealist experiments in photography, as well as the work of contemporary artists such as Shimon Attie, Gregory Crewdson, Jeff Wall and Krystof Wodiczko.

The new light boxes and photographs that make up most of Bacchanalia feature a cast of eccentric characters escaping from or into their own private worlds. In one, a figure has constructed a makeshift ladder from plastic chairs to climb out of his own back yard. In another, a young woman hops over her garden fence into the overgrown wilderness of her neighbour’s garden. A place of escape gently alluded to in several of the pictures is that of the bacchanal: a celebration of Dionysus, the god of wine in Greek mythology. Other works pay homage to Picasso and Braque’s experiments in cubism. These pieces, the result of nighttime photo shoots in a community centre, refer lovingly to the value and beauty of creative spaces.

The concluding piece in the exhibition is Coombes’ first video. This very short work builds on his recent performances and is constructed from another new series of still photographs.

Part domestic slide show, part lecture, the images are accompanied by an actor’s voiceover that tells a simple but elliptical story. The piece is influenced by the work of the French filmmaker Chris Marker. Juxtaposing the stylised projection pictures with documentary work, the theatricality of the former rubs off on the 'realism' of the latter, and vice-versa, producing a kind of visual magic-realism.

Justin Coombes was born in 1977. As well as photography and video, his work uses performance and drawing. He has exhibited extensively in London and abroad and recently won the prestigious BOC Group Emerging Artist Award 2005. See www.boc.com/artist/justin_2005.asp and www.justincoombes.com for more information.

The artist participates in the Fosterart Collection, an artist-owned body of work that is lent by Fosterart to public and private sector organisations with the aim of increasing access to high-quality contemporary art.

This exhibition has been made possible by the generous support of the BOC Group, Metro Imaging, Unique Cards and Print, and a group of private investors. It will also be staged at the BOC Headquarters in Windlesham, Surrey from December 2005 to April 2006.