Vic Coombes, 'Cloak'

My work is concerned with the manipulation of materials and surfaces. It Is neither figurative nor representational, it is more about inviting evocation/apparition. My studio practice involves a good deal of preparation particularly regarding the use of materials such as traditional handmade gesso juxtaposed with industrial paints. The current paintings are made with an improvisatory approach. They are non-literal and experimental. With an emphasis on what paint does. The method requires a truce between risk/restraint and caution/recklessness so that the inner life of the work comes about through denouements and happenstance. Paint is applied and removed in equal measure in search of apparitional discoveries or rediscoveries. Sometimes familiar fleeting images or subjective resonances are found in the stains, fragments, and traces. My intention is that the viewer's gaze is drawn beyond the immediate encounter of the work into a subjective, suggestive realm of meaning.

Born and bred in Oxford, now living, and working in Bristol. Studio at Spike Island.