Surf Art

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Is surfing Art? Is the actual act of surfing an Art form? Are all surfers artists in some way?

There's a lot of both surf and Art around in this part of the world (south west Cornwall, in the UK, since you ask) with the Tate Gallery in St Ives and the renowned Newlyn School of Art just down the road toting their historic lists of well known painters and sculptors.

But recently Penzance itself has become the place to see more cutting edge work, perhaps not relying on traditional painting and sculpting methods.

Check out the new art works by artist and surfer Ben Cook .


This piece refers to the demise of Hayle based Kamikaze surfboards, and the retirement of the company's owner and shaper Mutley, after around 80,000 surfboards.




' I'm not sure if I'm an artist who surfs, or a surfer who arts' says Ben.



Despite this mental conundrum, he has made some great investigations in to the areas where surf and art cross over.

See his latest show upstairs at the Cornwall Contemporary gallery in Penzance.


Well worth a look.

Comments

Yo Surfer said…
Big shame to see Kamikaze go. Although I only ever had one board of Mutley and it was a dog!
May 9, 2009 at 5:01 PM
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