Allen Coombs

Allen is a UK based artist working in a variety of media who has exhibited in the UK, Europe and Japan. His work is concerned predominantly with the nature of identity. Heavily influenced by ideas of the grotesque and the absurd his work fluctuates between the representation of the object of study and the medium concerned with making that representation. The works produced are nearly always serial in nature and constructed from the line, that simple and fragile device which perpetually aspires to create an image.

Cartographies of Desire
This series was initiated in 1997 while exploring the work of the dark Surrealists, Bellmer, Bataille, Artaud. From an initial drawing produced through automatism each subsequent piece has been based on the duplication of the previous while engaged in distraction techniques. The result is a record of an evolving organism changed through chance mutations.

Memoirs of a Point in Time
These works are the outcome of experiments with the centrifugal effect and off centered weights, resulting in a simple mechanical device that shuffles around in an attempt to remain upright. Each pane takes up to 12 hours to draw and is arranged with two or more other panes to make up the final pieces. As such the resulting works are more a curatorial process than a traditionally skills based one.

Memoirs of a Point in Time - pen and ink on card, framed, 92 x 63cm £180
Catergories of Desire-Untitled, framed, 67 x 85cm £160 (above)