Toby Corbett, August 2006

Toby Corbett's "Junkyard" - Acrylic on Canvas

Toby Corbett is a frequent exhibitor in the HBO Art Gallery. This show consisted of Corbett's landscapes. Toby's statement:

This past summer while riding my bike alongside the Thames River, I stopped to admire a view across the river of the Battersea Power Station. A small stairway carved into the stone embankment that led down to the river’s edge. As I descended the steps I noticed that the ebb tide had exposed an old and now rusty motorcycle stuck in the muddy bank of the river. These two evocative objects, differing in scale and composition, were united by their juxtaposition with the tidal river. They became neglected monuments, preserving even in their now decrepit states, memories of the technology they once embodied. These two disparate objects inspired a series of landscape paintings concerned with the fragility and mortality of technology.

"Landscapes" Show @ HBO

Toby Corbett was born in London, England and as a child immigrated to the Pacific Northwest. His mentor at the University of Washington was renowned African-American artist Jacob Lawrence. Corbett's skills as a painter led to an initial career in regional theatre as a scenic artist. After moving to New York City he started working as a scenic designer on numerous off Broadway productions. His work in the theatre led to a career as a production designer for television and film. He has had the opportunity to work with a distinguished group of filmmakers and actors including Kathryn Bigelow, Keifer Sutherland, Tracey Ullman, Jim McBride, Danny Huston, Alec Baldwin,William H Macy, Danny Glover, Wayne Kramer, and John Sayles. Corbett has continued to work on his own artwork throughout his design career. In the last five years he has been exhibiting his work in various galleries around Los Angeles. The Creative Arts Center, a large municipal gallery in Burbank California gave him is first one man show in 2001. In 2006 he completed a residency at the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture in New York City.

Toby Corbett on the set of "The Honeydripper", a John Sayles Film

photo by Jim Sheldon