The Short History Of Corbin Nash
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Born and raised in The Shire, Corbs “The Orbs” Nash started out splattering paint at a school called Newington College, where Neil “Rockpool” Perry had earlier splattered food, and sundry Tongan royals splattered rugby opponents. It’s also the alma mater of Hal Holman, who you’re no doubt aware is the guy who designed the New Guinean Coat of Arms. So somewhere between heraldry and splattering, Corbin’s prospects were flattering.
Our guy secured a place in the artistic firmament by staking his personal Louvre on the underside of every skate rat’s deck from Rockhampton to Rotto. But he got his big break as art director on K-Zone kids mag, Australia’s number one magazine for kids aged 6-12, after which he was compelled to simplify his richly nuanced illustrations for SW’s audience.
By the time he’d done the gruelling 48-point physical examination to join the SW team, one of Corbin’s wild illustrations had caught the eye of Mylie Cyrus, who re-posted it, sending his Insta followers skyrocketing and damn near breaking the internet.
His black-and-white line drawings reference the traditions of comic book art and they’re unflinching: every line, whisker and furrow in the subject’s face picked out in bold strokes against the white. Not shaded, not discreetly overlooked. Eyes that cut clear out of the page and speak to you, as rendered most memorably in his regal portrait of Seano Doherty.
Then there’s the luridly-coloured Sex Cauldron project, designs that burgle the traditions of the Mexican Dia de Muertos and a macabre Wunderkammer of bones and skulls, acid eyes, disembodied limbs and whiskered fish. It feels as though one minute there was no Corbs in the SW landscape, and the next he had re-made the entire mag in his happily demented image.
It’s tempting to go looking for influences behind this Basquiat of the Barrel. Corbs is not short on self-confidence, and thus has been pinned with the moniker “Coolbin.” Walking down the street in Cronulla he’s stopped constantly by passers-by for a dusting of the magic: the conversational ease, the charm…but don’t let any of that misdirect you. He burns pretty bright.
He’s been stabbed in a fight and has gone through the windscreen of a car in an accident. He digs hip hop, horror flicks, cartoons and comics. The natural state of his hair is a ‘fro but you wouldn’t ‘kno because he runs a combine harvester over his scalp almost daily. He’s always rocking a new board, and can lay it over into an outrageous goofyfoot look-back frontside snap, which when executed correctly smacks the eye like an exploding spraycan on the principal’s wall.
Hanging with the likes of Cronulla artist and charger Jack Irvine has only served to crank the dials nearer to bleeding eardrums. His art, like the mad, gruesome irreverence of a severed hand with angel wings or the Ren & Stimpy vulgarity of a sinister grinning icecream, is no great conceptual distance from throwing yourself over the ledge at Vooeys – something else the Corbster does with alarming ease.
More surprising, perhaps, is his unappointed role as father-figure to the up-and-coming groms on SW’s Grom Bash trips. Corbs won’t hesitate to dish out punishment to lippy whippersnappers, even if they’re signed up and eyeing multiple World Titles through the 2020s.
In the work environment, often operating out of the SW armoured personnel carrier at temperatures in which his inks solidify and must be chewed to return to a semi-liquid state, Corbs remains unflappable at all times. No deadline can shake him: he’s cooler than the deep end of Ivan Lendl’s pool. At an office game called ‘ring toss’ (none of your business) he raced through the ranks from the worst player to third worst.
Talent like this is not easily replaced. From the iconic and the classic to the iconoclastic, Corbs will leave a giant, three-eyed, skull-shaped hole here at SW.
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