Corinne Cobabe
Perfect is not a word
As a kid, I was afraid of the dark. My parents would go on trips, and even with four older siblings our house sometimes felt cavernous and unsettling.
Going through boxes of photos, I can imagine looking at that house from outside. Nice big home. Nice cars. Nice things. Big family. Very religious. High standards.
Arguments. Substances. Lots of money. Then none. Eventually, a divorce. Leaving boxes filled with genuine laughter, tenderness, privilege… but also grief. Though, from the outside, perfect.
This work contrasts my emotional journey into adulthood with photographs taken by my family along the way. By separating figure from background and recomposing fragments of locations, symbols and time periods, the images become imperfect documents of the past, and yet perhaps more truthful about how it felt, and who it made me.
Artist Bio
As a professional photographer for over 20 years, Corinne has seen her commercial work published in books, ad campaigns and magazines such as Southbay and California Home. In 2014, her photographs of the Venice home/studio belonging to Robert Graham and Angelica Huston received national attention in The Wall Street Journal. In 2015, Corinne began traveling extensively, interviewing and photographing people from all walks of life for The Five Wisdoms Project, which culminated in a published book and solo exhibition in 2019. Two years later, Corinne began showing new works under the title Arrested Decay, which have now appeared in numerous juried shows including the Los Angeles Center of Photography’s PROJECT Exhibition, A. Smith Gallery’s Botanicals and the Brea Gallery’s prestigious Made In California exhibition in 2024. Arrested Decay also received international recognition via inclusion in Communication Arts’s Photography Annual 64. In her latest work, Perfect is Not a Word, Corinne explores the emotional journey into adulthood through the medium of collage; combining photography from her extensive personal catalog with decades of images taken by members of her immediate family.