David Cobley at The Mall Galleries

Having let my blogging slip for a while, I now want to try and catch up on things I have seen or done. It's been a very good year actually. One recent show was David Cobley's one man exhibition at the Mall Galleries last month : All By Himself. This was on two days before I left for Edinburgh. I managed to have a chat with him as well : a very down to earth and pleasant guy.

Like Mark McLaughlin, Cobley's an artist I have noticed in the past, liking his work and technique. Seeing them all together in one show was a great chance to have a proper look. The photograph above shows a work he was auctioning: an obvious homage to a very famous Hockney painting. A very good painting in its own right.

Hockney's painting Portrait of an Artist was sold at auction in 2018 for over $90 million, the most moeny ever made for a work by a living artist.

One of the pictures I really liked of his before was something called "Wordplay", I think shown at the Royal Society of Portrait Artists show earlier this year :

Above: Wordplay, oil, 76x112cm (detail right)

I imagine a very successful commission here. What I particularly liked was the expression on the girl's face as she watched her brother at work.

Cobley's web site showcases his work and it will be clear that he has a wide array of subject matter, and much imagination. Some very quirky stuff but all painted very well.

Below: Bandwagon To Oblivion, oil, 117 x 213.5 cm