Grapnel (2023)
William Cobbing (b.1974)
Grapnel (2023)
glazed ceramic
27cm x 18cm x 15cm
Private collection of the author
Cringe. Embarrassment. Shame. These are powerful emotions that make us feel bad about ourselves, and nobody wants that. So why would anybody want to be reminded of them on a daily basis? Maybe ‘want’ isn’t the right word. ‘Need’ might be more appropriate. Being mindful of emotions we’d like to avoid is a helpful way to ensure we don’t find ourselves having to reverse out of their one-way, dead end street again.
That’s something I’ve come to appreciate about Grapnel, by William Cobbing, which sits on a shelf in my office. If you’re on a video call with me and I have to step away from my desk then you’ll find yourself staring at Grapnel. Maybe you’ll wince. Maybe you’ll laugh. I certainly did — laugh — when I first laid eyes on its wide-open empty eye sockets hidden by the inner hands of shame. It was silly and shocking, but it was also relatable. That’s why I acquired it.
My first exposure to Cobbing’s works was at the 2022 London Open at Whitechapel Gallery. An entire wall was filled with his small ceramics. In my review I wrote that they “look like squishy wads of loo roll thrown against the wall, sprouting orifices and limbs reaching out to embrace life. What are all these… things? These strange entities that have just enough human-like features to make me ponder what it actually means to be human.” I wouldn’t encounter Grapnel for another two years but the impression from Cobbing’s ceramics stuck with me, as did his videos.
Cobbing’s videos defy categorisation. They contain humour, horror and surrealism, have plenty of squishy sounds that please the ASMR community, and feature just enough familiar human behaviours to keep the pundits and critics deeply engaged about their meaning. Arguably his most well known series involve a man with, or wearing, a giant clay head that is slowly sliced away with a cheese wire, revealing inner chasms that represent eyes and a mouth, out of which thick colourful paint slowly oozes and drips like raclette. Here’s a sample video.
These videos should be disturbing enough to keep you awake deep into the night but thanks to the vibrant paint swirls and brightly lit backgrounds they’re friendly and mesmerising. It helps that the head is cartoonishly too big for the body. The figures are human but alien and like the wet clay with which they are made, they stick in your brain. That might be why I found myself drawn to his glazed ceramics. As an art collector I wanted something tangible, something physical that gave me the same sense of amusement and unease that his video works did, but which didn’t require me to turn on a screen to see it.
One of the reasons Cobbing’s works are so relatable is because they are not gendered. They are anyone who experiences emotion, which is everyone. Grapnel, however, has a distinctive feature that gives it a subtle difference. It is smaller than an adult sized head. I see it as youth. More specifically, I see innocence.
When I look at Grapnel I see my inner child. It reminds me of learning and making mistakes and experiencing embarrassment for the very first time. That’s a very different kind of shame than the shame of an adult who knows better, which might be why Grapnel is easy to embrace. It’s not a real-time mirror reflecting the stress and horrors of adulting, but a time machine reminding me that past, painful oopsies are now life lessons and amusing anecdotes thanks to the gift of distance and perspective.
Subjectively, many of Cobbing’s works could be described as freakish but Grapnel makes me want to hug it. I want to embrace this little face with its taut, frightened hands crawling out from inside itself to cover its eyes, similar to how little children hiding under blankets feel safe and secure because if they can’t see what’s scary then the scary things can’t see them. I want to let Grapnel know that everything is going to be okay, which makes me wonder… maybe it’s me that needs that hug?
Additional reading:
Artist Instagram: @william.cobbing
Meet the Artist: William Cobbing (via Canopy Collections)
Previously, on Why I Like It:
Mar — Rhino Costume (1989), Gerald Scarfe
Feb — I Want My Time With You (2017), Tracey Emin
Jan — Unearthed (2019), Adam Halls