Chris Coombes is a visual artist based in London.

Working across painting, photography, print, video, and design-inflected objects, his practice examines how institutions, systems, and aesthetics shape collective identity, cultural aspiration, and everyday visual life. From estate agent emails to branded tea towels, supermarket shelves to museum typography, his work maps the soft power of British design and the quiet mechanisms by which value and belonging are constructed.

Raised in a military family and educated in boarding schools designed to provide continuity during frequent relocations, Coombes developed an early sensitivity to structure, repetition, and the symbolic language of authority. These systems now inform the tone and surface of the work: clean, coded, observant, and attentive to the gap between appearance and intent.