MELANIE COMBERTOURIST

MELANIE COMBERTOURIST

CONTENTS

6 Director’s Foreword

8 Downtown

10 Southside

12 Uptown

14 Populous

16 East End

18 West End

20 Tourists

22 Midtown

24 Midwest

26 Upstate

28 Leftfield

30 Stateside

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The Cat Street Gallery is thrilled to present TOURIST, the first solo show in Hong Kong by British artist, Melanie Comber. Comber’s latest body of work features 12 paintings, each displaying the artist’s recognisable skill for applying paint and pigment to canvas, carving enigmatic perspective and spaces into her two-dimensional surfaces.

Comber’s palpably textural artworks were first seen here in Hong Kong, to great acclaim, as part of the ‘The British Cut’ group show in May 2012. The artist has continued to explore notions of spatial focus, toying with scale and distance as she layers and carves into paint, and dusts the surface with powdery pigment. Often appearing as aerial views of anonymous landscape - like the surface of the moon - or conversely, magnified microscopic matter - Comber’s works are both ethereal and bold renderings of abstracted landscapes.

This latest show, TOURIST, draws on its title’s literal meaning: (n), a person who travels for pleasure, as Comber channels her own experiences - searching for uncharted land, or mining her memory for places she once saw. As viewers, we are tourists, exploring her vision and absorbing her pictorial windows of depth - as if gazing through a lens, searching for a focus point. As Comber investigates the notion of map-making and aerial photography, she explores the premise that reality can be modelled in ways which communicate spatial information effectively - allowing an area which exists in three dimensions to become a symbolic depiction in two - and creating her own monuments to emotional experience.

DIRECTOR’S FOREWORD

Mandy d’Abo

Founder and Director The Cat Street Gallery

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Plate 1: DowntownOil and pigment on canvas

90 x 80 cm 2013

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Plate 2: SouthsideOil and pigment on canvas90 x 80 cm 2013

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Plate 3: UptownOil and pigment on canvas

90 x 80 cm 2013

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Plate 4: PopulousOil and pigment on canvas100 x 100 cm 2013

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Plate 5: East EndOil and pigment on canvas

100 x 100 cm 2013

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Plate 6: West EndOil and pigment on canvas100 x 100 cm 2013

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Plate 7: TouristsOil and pigment on canvas

120 x 100 cm 2013

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Plate 8: MidtownOil and pigment on canvas120 x 100 cm 2013

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Plate 9: MidwestOil and pigment on canvas

140 x 120 cm 2013

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Plate 10: UpstateOil and pigment on canvas140 x 120 cm 2013

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Plate 11: LeftfieldOil and pigment on canvas

130 x 150 cm 2013

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Plate 12: StatesideOil and pigment on canvas130 x 150 cm 2013

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SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2013 Tourist, The Cat St Gallery, Hong Kong

2011 No Man’s Land, The Fine Art Society, London

2008 Daytripper, The Fine Art Society, London

2007 Snowglobe, The Fine Art Society, London

2005 Long Distance, The Fine Art Society, London

2004 Voyager, Fosterart, London

2000 Melanie Comber @ Hiscox Art Café, London. 66 Degrees, 33’ N, 18 degrees 01’W, Melanie Comber Paintings from Iceland, The Blue Gallery, London.

1998 Heavy Breathing, The Blue Gallery, London.

1996 Melanie Comber New Paintings, The Blue Gallery, London.

1995 Melanie Comber Paintings, The Blue Gallery, London

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2013 The Alde Valley Spring Festival, Suffolk

2012 The Materiality of Paint, The Fine Art Society, London Small is Beautiful XXV Flowers, London The British Cut, The Cat Street Gallery, Hong Kong

2011 The Summer Exhibition, The Royal Academy, London Small is Beautiful XXIV Flowers, London Kitchen Projects, Trans Siberian Art Centre touring show

2010 The Marmite Art Prize, Manchester, Coventry, London Small is Beautiful XXVIII Flowers, Central London BFAMI Gala charity Auction, Christies, London

BIOGRAPHY

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2009 Volta Basel, with the Fine Art Society 1984, DACS 25th Anniversary Exhibition, The Kowalsky Gallery, London British Painting of the Twentieth Century, David Koetser Gallery, Zurich

2008 Scope London, with the Fine Art Society Scope Miami USA, with the Fine Art Society

2007 Select, Bourne Fine Art, Edinburgh, Scotland Monochromed 2, The Fine Art Society, London

2006 Monochromed, The Fine Art Society, London

2004 Small is Beautiful XXII, Flowers Central, London

2003 3hree, Bcontemporary, London Atlantic, Fosterart, London

2002 Balmy Daze, Houldsworth Fine Art, London

2001 Line Up, Gallery Fine, London British Abstract Painting 2001, Flowers East, London Boriginal, Bcontemporary, London

1999 Bankside Browser, Tate Gallery, London White Out, Gallery Fine, London

1997 Focus, Claus Goedicke, Melanie Comber, Selfridges, London The Nat West Art Prize, Lothbury, London Splash, British Art In America, Raw Gallery, New York

1995 Elemental, The Blue Gallery, London Tusk Force Auction, The Serpentine Gallery, London

1994 SBC European Art Award, Swiss Bank House, London The Contemporary Art Society Art Market, The Royal Festival Hall, London No Turkeys, Raw Gallery, London

1993 The New Art Award, Cubitt Street Gallery, London

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AWARDS

1997 Prizewinner, The Nat West Art Prize, London

1994 Finalist, SBC European Art Award, London

1993 Finalist, The New Art Award, Cubitt Street Gallery, London

PUBLICATIONS

Heavy Breathing, The Blue Gallery, published by The Pale Green Press (1998) The Nat West Art Prize 1997, published by Weald Press 66 degrees, 33’N, 18 degrees, 01W, The Blue Gallery, published by The Pale Green Press Artworks, British and German Contemporary Art 1960 - 2000 (ISBN 1 85894 118 0), published by Merrell British Abstract Painting 2001, Matthew Collings (ISBN 1 902 945 271), published by Momentum Long Distance, The Fine Art Society (ISBN 0 905062191) Snowglobe, The Fine Art Society (ISBN 978 0905062 396) Daytripper, The Fine Art Society (ISBN 978 0905062 556) Monochromed, The Fine Art Society (ISBN 0 905 062 302)

COLLECTIONS

Deutschebank, Coutts, RBS, Hiscox, RGB Underwriting, Jupiter, Pantheon Ventures, The David Roberts Foundation, Sainsburys and numerous private collections in the UK and abroad.

WEBSITES

www.melaniecomber.com www.faslondon.com www.axisweb.org

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The Cat Street Gallery

222 Hollywood Road, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong / T +852 2291 0006 / www.thecatstreetgallery.com