Courtney Coombs has spent the year as Metro Arts’ 2016 Artist in Residence unlearning. Adopting Irigaray’s ‘The Ethical Gesture towards the Other’ as gospel, she has been looking out, looking in and conversing wherever possible to better understand her position in this world and the connections/disconnections that occur as a result. Looking Out will present a small selection of the outcomes of this lifelong pursuit.
Courtney Coombs is a Brisbane-based artist who works with photography, moving image, installation, performance, sculpture and found objects. She is also a shy and introverted political activist grappling with the nexus of art and life and thus her work is too. Her practice critiques the heteronormative, patriarchal structures of both the art world and society more broadly using strategies such as subjective voice, personal narrative, humour, metaphor and reappropriating the clichés of romantic love. Coombs is suspicious of the allure of expensive, shiny and/or ‘finished’ things and as such uses personal vulnerability, collaboration, intimacy, everyday items and minimal gestures to explore the value and position of art and human connection/disconnection.
Exhibition Opening: 16 November 2016, 6PM
Artist Talk: 16 November 2016. 5.30pm
