exhibition

Voyager

Melanie Comber

20.May.04 - 27.Jun.04
Wed-Sun 12-6 or by appt

Private View, 20.May.04, 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

Fosterart is pleased to host this exhibition of works by Melanie Comber, rising young star of
the British art scene. After several sell-out shows and major private commissions, she is
presenting new work with her first solo show in this inviting Shoreditch space.

The eminent artist Prunella Clough saw her potential early on. “There is no doubt of her
dedication, a capacity to pursue the ideas where they might lead, and a parallel enjoyment in
the technical means she discovered. Really concentrated work, rewarded by genuinely felt
paintings and a rich potential vocabulary of forms concerning the natural world.”

When Comber decided to make a career as an artist, she didn’t choose the easy or obvious
method to express herself. Seeking to capture the contradiction of evolving nature portrayed
on fixed canvas, she discovered that impressions of organic growth, sedimentation and
erosion could be fas hioned by building up layers of paint and protruding particles, scoring the
surface, and dusting or throwing pigment against the picture plane. Through a skilful
application of colour, shadow, dimension and focal point, she could mimic photographic
realism with intriguing distortions of distance and scale.
Having mastered this messy, expensive, and time-consuming process, she is able to produce
results reminiscent of surfaces built up and scarred by glaciers, tides, and human intervention.
A post-industrial Aura (the Greek goddess of wind), masked Melanie recreates the forces of
nature and man in an unheated Deptford studio, recording beauty interspersed with the
grotesquery observed on her real and imagined voyages. Months are spent producing faraway
planetary surfaces, a bit of lichen-covered bark curling off a tree, or a track cut through the
desert, yet these paintings steadfastly refuse simply to illustrate landscape. Rather, their
presence suggests unknown but strangely familiar subjects viewed from undisclosed locations.
Melanie Comber aims not only to create paintings that surprise, astonish and fascinate, but
also to encourage a more rigorous exploration of the world around us. Her expert paint marks
draw attention to line, texture, and colour, heightening our senses and experience of
observation. The painting's purpose is fully realised when it stimulates delightful contemplation
as well as increasing our perception of the environment.
Susan Loppert – curator, critic and former Director of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Arts –
is joining us for an evening during the exhibition for a wide-ranging conversation with Melanie
about her work, influences, and interests.