Martha Colburn: My Secret Shame

Due to the coronavirus outbreak, HOME is temporarily closed and this event will no longer be taking place on the advertised dates.

We are working with the artist/company to set a new date for this event but at the moment we do not know yet how long this closure will last.

More information on HOME’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, can be found here

HOME will host the first UK solo exhibition by Martha Colburn, curated by Bren O’Callaghan, bringing together an eclectic selection of her work from the past twenty-five years. Martha’s bold, frenzied and offbeat animations are simultaneously fantastical, painterly and punk rock; providing a skull-splitting, homebrew alternative to the anonymous, online media stream.

Incorporating animation, collage, drawing, photography and an accompanying cinema programme, Colburn has created over 70 films and an orbiting asteroid-belt of related ephemera tracing the artist’s journey from rural Pennsylvania to Baltimore’s underground film scene via Amsterdam, New York and Los Angeles.

Martha Colburn’s commitment to a laborious, hand-made analogue process, often taking years to complete a single work, shows dedication to the stop-motion process and results in a unique voice in high octane, experimental film.

In the gallery, Dolls vs. Dictators (2010) pits Pee-Wee Herman and The Power Rangers plus a supporting toy box infantry against the world’s most infamous despots. Myth Labs (2008) reinterprets the arrival of the Pilgrim settlers within a land rich in crystal-meth. Triumph of the Wild (2009) sees man and nature tumble through a cycle of destruction at the expense of the natural world.

Also included are many of Colburn’s early, cult-underground shorts exploring fetish, desire and obsession within a purposely built cruise-maze of dark corners, curtained booths and seedy soundtracks… featuring My Secret Shame (1996), Hey Tiger! (1996), There’s A Pervert in our Pool (1998), Spiders in Love (1999) and Cats Amore (2000), creating a heady, intoxicating playscape of pseudo-sleaze.

New work includes an anatomical autopsy for Brooklyn-based performance artist Narcissister and the UK cinema premiere of The Garden (2018), a London Sinfonietta and Asko|Schönberg co-commission featuring animation by Martha and composed by Richard Ayres. The Garden follows one man’s search for meaning, in the midst of a mid-life crisis, as he digs a tunnel from his garden, to hell, heaven and back again.

A supporting film programme will screen additional artist shorts plus related features.

This exhibition is suitable for mature audiences only (18+)

“Emerging from Baltimore’s experimental art and music scene in the mid-90s, Colburn’s early films reflected a gritty, trashy DIY sensibility that also characterized zine culture and underground music of the period.”
Hyperallergic

“The result of a painstakingly slow and hand-driven production process, Colburn’s animated films nonetheless teem with speed, their paper puppet stars running, tumbling, and falling apart in a constantly morphing and manipulated landscape.”
SF MOMA

“Taking everything from Hunter S Thompson to Howard Zinn and The Doors as inspirational sources, Colburn is the contemporary nomadic artist personified.”
Dazed Digital

Dates
POSTPONED

Admission
Free

Opening hours
Mon – Sat: 12:00 – 20:00 Sun: 12:00 – 18:00

Mature audiences (18+)