HENRY COOMBES
Sorcha Dallas, until Sat 11 Sep 0000
Henry Coombes' untitled series of new paintings does not make for easy viewing. To begin, a portly businessman sprawls prone on a pebbled beach, a shiny Bentley parked behind him, and a giant eagle pinning him down. Here, a blowsy housewife shows off her homunculus earrings. There, a ruddy-faced butcher, accompanied by his shadowy doppelganger, goes happily about his business, oblivious to the miniature steer licking blood from his shirt cuff. Everywhere, strange metamorphoses are in progress (is that an arm or a shotgun?) bolstered by enough in the way of troubling psycho- sexual juxtaposition to keep a Freudian analyst in business for a month of Sundays.
So far, so unheimlich. Coombes is playing old games with the unconscious here, dredging up muck best left lurking in our collective id. Or is he? Once the uncomfortable giggle raised by the icky imagery is allowed to fade, something more sophisticated than Surrealist pick and mixing asserts itself. This is down to a sort of double bluff, revealed by Coombes‘ newfound adoption of a finnicky, suburban painting style. Coombes is representing a provincial curate’s idea of Shocking Modern Art here; the sort of thing that, shown at the summer féte, would have curtain-twitching gossips whispering for years. The not-very—disturbing subject matter joins forces with a neo-twee style to point an accusatory finger at the sophisticated Glasgow gallery-goer, who is, of course, smugly unfazed by the uncanny and dismissive nature of
Coombes’ faux-naivete. It’s a cute trick to play, and the result is a good deal more unnerving than Coombes‘ warped subjects alone. (Jack Mottram)
l’AlN l th3
STEVEN CAMPBELL: JEAN-PIERRE LEAUD
Glasgow Print Studio, until Thu 23 Sep .00
De Magier with Mona Lisa Smile
There's a heck of a lot going on in Jean-Pierre Leaud. Steven Campbell's first showmg in Glasgow in over a decade. The cavalcade of aIIuSion and reference stalking across these large-scale canvases takes in the murky Masonic histog of Rosslyn Chapel, mythic menaces Such as the Green Man. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Robert LOuis Ste\enson. Bela LngOSI. Arthur Rimbaud and. of COurse. Leaud. Truffaut's
protege. Stylistic borrowuigs also {tl)()tlll(l. from (De/anne more than most. though Monet gets a look in. and. With their tangletl limbs and bottles in treetall, much here recalls Bruegel.
lhis makes for tremendous tun in the gallery, With each painting offering a new pu//le to piece together. but once the game of spot-the reference is done. there’s something unsatisfying about these works. It is as it Campbell slurps up and spits out his sources. taking a quick taste rather than digesting. so that. insteatl ot moulding a coherent discourse on his chosen themes — the master and apprentice. the actor and the role —— he offers up a jumble of (EElfSIl‘, reatl t3\,llll)()lli§lll iit is. perhaps. an unfair comparison. but Campbell's failure here contrasts \‘.’|lll Mathew Barney's O\."€l\\'ll€lllllllg Success tackling 8 Similar self- referential blending of imth and Masonry with pop culture bogey/men in his Cremasfer Cyc/el. That said. Campbell has lost none of his painterly power, nor his unerring knack fOr the Slowly revealed. hinting narratwe. it's just that his \.‘.*Ork buckles under the lumpen weight of his Simultaneousk under-dexeloped and O\er- wrought attempt to forge a bo-mo mythology iJack Mottram‘
Art
Untitled
OTTO DIX’S NUDE LYING
ON A FUR
by Moyna Flannigan
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perhaps the 'izcs’. challenginj aw: difficult figurative painting in an, 'r‘r,<ler‘n (,(lllff’Lllffll :r‘. Sf.(iil£lllfl. lhat's at», l loge if. lt (0”,‘t‘r ,ei; to tiuestion your own £fillltlfl‘:‘$ antl (lesires
A young ‘.'./().'l‘t'll‘. lies or: a luxurnant fur l,e' l; her fang. i;oi':en lair cascade, ope: lie' breast anti settles gent}, art The tut .'.«c'v‘an anfl anin‘ai It": nte.".'./o.e't [Dix paints the texttires of fur. her hair {t'lfl her soft pale skin .‘wtlt a 'lelti\.e',s. ewpt‘asi'wr; the sensuousness of the subject. Bill be toils our f:Xl;(,-f;i£lllt)'l‘, c‘ seeing a stermfm Cal, beautiful nurle. Dix's niitle is u'iobtainable, exen repellent. She 's a siri‘pleloclirig girl i.-.«itl‘ a xacant exjress'cii. a'vl l‘er Lori, liéIl‘.’.’K.‘.’£t”ll,">l,.(1l.‘f’3Us:l‘;£l.’IT‘(l'if)ill'lfll’flll‘: iinaginatio".. She is r‘ct sc lY‘tl’Ll‘ nine as nake’l.
This painting is t‘,’pscal cf the other sirle of Ge"? a.’ Pr," an: ';l‘;'l !ll its inner/:ng capacit, to ‘ace realm But Dr is no ri‘isotmiist. He is exposing the tho/1n, of the nude ‘.'.”)'l‘2ll‘: painter: fer the n‘ale gaze. am forcing as t’, r:x;it"i'ie urir real/it we Ho's: can this "safe ce :;'2 ug', am .ef beenr; to a grew,- at,', it :.e;i.it,’/ lle not on', criticises the ham/ms. art. but societ,‘s .‘sel‘-’le’;’,epfc" aix, .‘ ‘::‘.'e, ’l‘:‘,": a'i'l Hex Otto Dix's art .vas "st s-n1i.'. a 'ealis: depot/x1 u" ‘.i'."e.'":ar Ger”‘;:' .; l'. .‘.'a‘, max“: acre tini'.e’sa, that‘ that. l: was a" expression 0‘ co: tori 'essfar ',e. b / ocpmer: Fascmn and «fused to ix: cev‘srre'i ‘rlis art res r E1f'ézfl'f’J'VUfSUCH;éili’ll/fi‘ftflilllili'lili’llllEil”/l/:
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Porfra :
3—2“, Sec THE LIST 89