The only way out is through presents a quiet interplay of material and processual explorations. The works explore moving through uncertainty, using form and texture to navigate a shifting landscape.
Opening Event: Saturday 2 November, 4-6pm.
Courtney Coombs makes art, writes, and facilitates to make sense of the world and their place in it. They are heavily influenced by situations and captivated by the relational. Employing queer-centric, anti-spectacular methodologies, they privilege periods of observing, thinking, feeling, learning, and unlearning as much as realising a final form, which often involves reimagining everyday encounters. Driven by concepts and seduced by the potential of uncertainty and ambiguity, their minimally presented liaisons include objects, installations, 2-dimensional works, moving images and sound, discourse, dialogue, and community building. Courtney imbues these subjective and gestural propositions with a hopeful criticality concerned with disrupting dominant narratives about worth and value and prompting different ways of seeing, understanding and being.
Courtney is currently lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia, on the unceded land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. They have exhibited throughout Australia and internationally in solo and group exhibitions. Recent solo exhibitions include: The only way out is through, CARPARK Milani Gallery (2024), Diamonds in the sky, Schmick Contemporary, Sydney (with Jordan Azcune) (2021), I can’t sleep when I’m anxious, CARPARK Milani Gallery, Brisbane (2020), The time of light, Metro Arts, Brisbane (2020); and Field of Vision, IMA Belltower, Brisbane (2019). Courtney has been the recipient of several awards, including the Australia Council for the Arts Resilience: Adapt Grant (2020), Australia Council for the Arts Development Grant (2018, 2017, 2016), Arts Queensland Queensland Arts Showcase Program Grant (2016), Australia Council for the Arts Arts Projects Grant (2016), Arts Queensland Individuals Fund Grant (2020, 2015), Australia Council for the Arts Early Career New Work Grant (2013). They have attended national and international residency programs including the Creative Australia Helsinki International Artist Programme Residency (2020). Their work is held in public and private collections.
