Meet Corbin Shaw, Huck 81’s Artist in Residence

Originally from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, artist Corbin Shaw explores ideas of masculinity through the medium of textiles. Best known for his unique take on the St George’s cross, he pays homage to the people and places that have shaped his northern identity – the pub, football pitches and boxing gyms.

Using his ex-mining town upbringing, Corbin investigates masculinity and how that was defined to him growing up, breaking stigmas and stereotypes through his re-imagination of masculine ​‘icons’ and objects.

Corbin Shaw is Huck 81’s Artist-In-Residence

You grew up watching football in Sheffield pubs. Was that where you first witnessed artistry and artistic expression?

There’s a lot of art happening subliminally in spaces you wouldn’t imagine. I think it’s how you look at it. I was formed by those spaces, that’s why they bleed out into my work. I didn’t always see them as spaces of inspiration. It was only when I started to study art at university and started to study artists’ work that was autobiographical. I was homesick at the time and feeling out of place at university. Reflecting on my relationship with the north, and Sheffield particularly, through my family and football, I never realised that my mundane could be interesting to someone else or relatable. I would come home to visit my dad and go to football with a completely different mindset. I felt as though I could see things clearer. That’s when I started to see the art in all of it. The songs, the dress code, the flags and banners, the spaces I knew so well were transformed for me.

Are you constantly noting down thought-provoking sentences in your journal for your artworks or do you have specific time allocated to coming up with them?

Both really. I’m inspired by what my parents and my friends say as well as adverts, TV, newspaper headlines, bathroom graffiti, football songs as well as Reddit forums, bits from books and podcasts. They are all the same to me. I think you’ve always got to be ​‘on’ in a fun way. The role of the artist is just to notice things really, and say ​‘this’ is important or interesting.

Have many men of your dad’s age have contacted you saying your work has affected them and helped them access their feelings?

I don’t think that’s in their nature, but a lot of the sons have. What has been surprising is connecting with people not just from England but abroad who have had similar feelings of alienation in the masculine arena. I never thought that making such personal work would have personal connections to people in Italy or South America. 

Ed Hall has created many, many huge banners for Trade Union marches over the years from his shed in south London — are you influenced by his work?

Well, yes of course – who isn’t!?

Do you think the St George’s Cross will ever be fully embraced by the English public? It’s still very divisive.

I hope that I can play a part in deflating the old England and pointing the finger at the new England. England walks a tricky tightrope between pride and shame. I think it’s important to dissolve the rigid structures of ​“what feels English?” The reason why I feel maybe music or folk could be the answer to all of this is because they are so open to interpretation.

Do you find it hard dealing with what can be pretentiousness in the art world or do you just bypass all that and get on with your own stuff?

I just keep my head down, really. But it depends on what you think is pretentious. I don’t like the pretentiousness of art jargon and its ability to alienate people away from the gallery. But I don’t think all art has to make that much sense. I’ve been studying art properly now for seven years and I still feel like I know nothing. And that’s fine.

If you were commissioned to make a St George’s flag you could see from space and you had free rein with it. What would you make it say?

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A version of this story appeared in Huck 81. Get your copy here.

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