Ambiguity, mystery, intrigue: pervasive themes in the confounding work of Dan

Coombs and Freddie Bannister; themes that are activated by Coombs’ emboldening and

Bannister’s disconcertingly discrete use of the brush.

Dan Coombs, born in 1971, here presents a selection of collages on paper,

employing both cut paper and paint, and paintings on canvas. In each work is depicted at

least one human figure and at most two; they are intensely provocative, the viewer

compelled to encounter each, resplendent in strengths, weaknesses, guilty pleasures,

and sensitivities. They are instantly recognisable and yet simultaneously not; each are

characters we have encountered, choosing some to know better than others. Laden with

nuances and intricacies, these paintings are remarkable in the complexity they betray via

such formal simplicity. That Coombs often employs just one colour, cut and pasted paper,

and a select few marks to make his work is astounding; a statement he would likely

respond to with a broad smile and shrug of the shoulders.

Freddie Bannister, born 2002, with his delicately detailed approach, lays bare an

emotional ambiguity in his selection of drawings and paintings on paper. Deftly

dislocating images and scenes from their narrative, Bannister’s works evidence a

comparatively voyeuristic approach to image-making. His works present fragments and

vignettes, at times loaded with dynamism and danger, and at others with cool and calm; it

is striking then, that in both cases, they are painted or drawn in a universal style of

detachment, devoid of accentuated marks betraying the significance of one scene or

passage over another. Bannister not only likes the pure and fundamental fact of his

commonplace subjects, but exults in their commonplace look; they are not viewed

through blurred and kaleidoscopic lenses intentionally layered in coded meaning.

It is pertinent to each artist’s strengths, then, that these works, irrespective of their

stylistic differences, are convincing alongside one another. This is because both artists

are decisive and defiant through the image-making process. Where Coombs confidently

relinquishes control in attempts to access his subconscious and thus decides before his

consciousness has that the image is complete, Bannister specialises in a vastly differing

discipline, prioritising an altogether different type of reproducibility that, while

acknowledging the magnificence of the original, seeks to defame it. Both are desirous of

achieving something time and again, accepting and revelling in the importance of

repetition and experimentation within confines, albeit to aesthetically and, for their

personal satisfaction, conceptually differing ends.

But it is clear to the viewer that in both cases stories are suggested and not told

and characters are dramatically exposed but not introduced. Each work is raw and

sensitive; at their best they are enigmatic, exciting, and proud.

Each work offers a different perspective on and a different understanding of our

time. Each is a portal into another world resembling ours; each are semblant.