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LINDA COMBI - artist
Linda Combi was born in San Francisco, California, but
was drawn to Europe in a quest for Art and Romance. Now a British
National and cricket aficionado, she produces artwork for magazines, books,
and for exhibitions. Her fascination with cricket inspired a book of
cartoons entitled “A Broad on the Boundary”, which was published (and
remaindered) by the Fourth Estate in 1992. (See Amazon for used copies).
Monthly caricatures in the Cricketer Magazine required much ‘research’ at
cricket grounds around the country from 1994 to 2004.
Her humorous illustrations have appeared in The
Observer Magazine, The Times, the Independent on Sunday, Tatler Magazine,
and Sainsbury’s Magazine, as well as in illustration exhibitions.
She continues to exhibit work in a range of media, from
graphic collages to 3D Assemblages.
Artist’s Statement
'I
regard laughter as one of the essential ingredients for survival in today’s
world. During the late 1950’s and early 1960’s my parents subscribed
to the New Yorker Magazine. As a child I was hugely entertained by the
cartoons I found there, especially the work of Saul Steinberg. His
witty drawings provided sharp and surreal observations on American life.
And they were beautiful drawings too. I was made aware of the power of
humour by his work, as well as that of so many favourite comedians, humorous
writers and filmmakers. Humour can burst pomposity and undermine prejudice.
Recent work of mine employs various types of humour, ranging from gentle
mockery to angry satire.
The “Seven Deadly Sins” series aims to bring
a timeless subject up to date, as human foibles are a rich source of humour.
I’ve always been interested in the combination of text and image. I’ve
created each of the sinful ‘characters’ around the words
describing them, so that the G in “Greed”, for instance, makes the stomach
and tail of a Fat Cat.
I wanted to have fun with character traits when working
with the “Signs of the Zodiac” series. This work was fed by my
love of people watching. I’ve also used the words in each of the
signs as a means of constructing the images.
“The Brits” series is a celebration of my recent British
Nationalisation, and explores the variety of traditions and eccentricities
I’ve observed over the years: the love of gardening, cricket, pantomime,
pub-crawls and dog walking.
Linda Combi
March 2009
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RORY MOTION - artist
Born in Huddersfield, in 1956, the son of a simple Yorkshire sales
executive, Rory now resides in York, having lived variously in South-West
France, Mid-Wales and Devon. He has at various times been a Spirograph and
Stickleman stock-controller for Denys Fisher Toys, a painter and decorator,
forester, oil-rigger, English teacher, balloon modeller, stand-up comic,
singer-songwriter, radio broadcaster and poet, and sometimes performs with
his backing band, The Travelling Libraries.
Angelically tutored, Rory has painted continuously since childhood, and
therefore still sees the whole process as play, or ‘re-creation’ in its
truest sense. He first exhibited in 1979 at the spring exhibition at the Ferens Gallery in Hull. Since then he has shown paintings in South West
France, Mid-Wales, Devon and Yorkshire and had his first solo exhibition in
2004, at the Lucius gallery in York. In November 2007, Rory combined his
appearance at the Aldeburgh poetry festival with a successful exhibition at
the Peter Pears gallery.
Rory works mainly in oil pastels, producing interiors, landscapes and
text-pieces. He says he owes everything to his Mum, and forty quid to his
Dad.
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DAMIEN SHIRT - artist
Damien Shirt was born in Selby, Yorkshire, in 1969 and left school in the
mid-eighties to work in the family fishmonger business in the town centre.
His early artistic interests were focussed solely on music, taking a keen
interest in all things percussive, and taking full advantage of the swinging
Selby scene, Damien soon joined the moderately successful local ‘new age
romantic’ group, ‘The Quiche’.
In 1990, soon after moving to London on the promise of a record deal, the
band split and Damien found himself living in a bed-sit in Ladbroke Grove
and signing on the dole. Plagued by insecurity and feelings of
worthlessness, Damien enrolled at the London College of Accountancy, seeking
a broad-based qualification that he hoped could lead him into being a
chartered accountant, auditor or maybe even a business analyst.
In 2000, having qualified and built up a successful business practice in
corporate finance, Damien found himself plagued by security and feelings of
worthlessness, and resolved to find a new direction. Inspired by the Tate
gallery’s recent acquisition of a tin of excrement for £22,300, Damien
decided to become an artist.
Only two weeks after making the decision, he had his first major exhibition
at the White Cube gallery in Hoxton, followed two weeks later by his first
major retrospective at the same gallery. Surfing the recent Tate-inspired
wave of public hunger for human bodily waste, the exhibition was entitled
‘Wee-Wee’, and consisted of two dozen twenty-millilitre sterilised plastic
specimen bottles, containing urine samples collected from various
celebrities, including Janet Street-Porter, Sting and Bono. George Michael’s
early purchase of Janet Street-Porter’s thimbleful for £12.99 served as a
clarion call for good taste and discernment everywhere, ensuring the
exhibition’s subsequent sell-out to the tune of over £500.
Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate Gallery, may have almost said about the exhibition,
‘Shirt’s work is an examination of the processes of life and death and the
ironies, falsehoods and desires that we mobilise to negotiate our own
alienation and mortality, and yet in a more direct and compelling way, it’s
about wee-wee.’
Damien’s continued his explorations into futility, and celebrity extracts,
with ‘Spit’ in 2002, followed by ‘Toenails’ and ‘Earwax’ in 2003. Charles
Saatchi probably thought about saying of Damien’s 2005 show ‘Dandruff’,
‘The implied human presence in the work gives one overwhelming feelings of
loss, emptiness and betrayal, and yet there is also hope and redemption in
the confident self-containment of the specimen bottles, and, most
importantly, an underlying encouragement to practice good scalp hygiene.’
In 2006, following a rapturous reception to ‘Dandruff’, Damien moved home
and studio to the small East Yorkshire village of Wetwang, where he has been
working on new pieces for his upcoming show at the Pyramid Gallery in York,
his first for over three years.
(Pyramid Gallery takes no responsibility for any
mistruths or misrepresentations contained within Damien Shirt's biography)
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