Billy Childish

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Billy Childish bigraphy, stories - Religion

Billy Childish : biography

1 December 1959 –

Billy Childish (born Steven John Hamper, 1 December 1959) is an English artist, painter, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer and guitarist. He is known for his explicit and prolific work – he has detailed his love life and childhood sexual abuse, notably in his early poetry and the novels My Fault (1996), Notebooks of a Naked Youth (1997), Sex Crimes of the Futcher (2004) – The Idiocy of Idears (2007), and in several of his songs, notably in the instrumental "Paedophile" (1992) (featuring a photograph of the man who sexually abused him on the front cover) and "Every Bit of Me" (1993). From 1981 until 1985 Childish had a relationship with artist Tracey Emin.

He is a consistent advocate for amateurism and free emotional expression. Childish co-founded the Stuckism art movement with Charles Thomson in 1999, which he left in 2001. Since then a new evaluation of Childish’s standing in the art world has been under way, culminating with the publication of a critical study of Childish’s working practice by the artist and writer Neal Brown, with an introduction by Peter Doig, which describes Childish as "one of the most outstanding, and often misunderstood, figures on the British art scene".Brown, Neal (2008). Billy Childish: A Short Study. [London]: The Aquarium. ISBN 978-1-871894-23-3 He is a visiting lecturer at Rochester Independent College.. Rochester-college.org. Retrieved on 2013-02-03.

Painting

As a prospective student lacking the necessary entry qualifications, Childish was accepted into art school four times on the strength of his paintings and drawings. He studied foundation at Medway College of Design in 1977-78, and was then accepted onto the painting department of St Martins School of Art in 1978, before quitting a month later. He was re-accepted at St Martins in 1980, but was expelled in 1982 for refusing to paint in the art school and other unruly behavior. At St Martins, Childish became friends with Peter Doig with whom he shared an appreciation of Munch, Van Gogh and blues music. Doig later co-curated Childish’s first London show at the Cubit Street Gallery. In the early/mid 1980s Childish was a "major influence" on the artist Tracey Emin, whom he met after his expulsion from St Martins when she was a fashion student at Medway College of Design. Childish has been cited as the influence for Emin’s later confessional art. Childish paints in a personal style, which parallels his passion for the elemental in both writing and music. He has exhibited extensively since the 1980s and was featured in the British Art Show in 2000. Since 2002 Childish has been represented in London by the L-13 Gallery, along with Jamie Reid and James Cauty (with whom sometimes collaborates). In 1996 Childish painted "The Drinker", influenced by Hans Fallada’s novel of the same title. He has cited Fallada as a major influence on his own prose work, notably in the novel "Sex Crimes of the Futcher". In 2008 Childish commenced a series of paintings based on the life and death of the Swiss author Robert Walser, whom Childish has also cited as an influence on his prose work. In 2008 Childish made several paintings of the steam paddle tug John H Amos which was moored on a pontoon at Rochester. In 2010 a major exhibition of Childish’s recent paintings, writing and music was held at The ICA London, with a concurrent painting show running at White Columns Gallery in NY. Childish is represented by neugerriemschneider Berlin, and Lehmann Maupin, NY.

In October 2012 alongside Art Below Childish presented his work at the exhibition ‘Art Below Regents Park’ in Regents Park Tube station to coincide with Frieze Art Fair, one of the most important international contemporary art fairs that takes place each October in London.

File:Childish-in 5 Minits You’ll-Know-Me 500.jpg|In 5 Minits You’ll Know Me (sic), oil on canvas, 1997 File:Childish-Thumbprint-500.jpg|Thumbprint, oil on canvas, 1997 File:Childish-Man-in-Snow-500.jpg|Man Walking in Snow, oil on canvas, 1999 File:Childish-BC033-500.jpg|Hand on Face, oil on canvas, 2000 File:Childish-Man-in-Landscape-600.jpg|North Beach, San Francisco, oil on canvas, 2000 File:Childish-Chatham-500.jpg|St. John’s Church, Chatham, oil on canvas, 2000 File:Childish-Yellow-Clothes 500.jpg|Tea Drinker, High Atlas, oil on canvas, 2007 File:Medway Steam Boat 1-500.jpg|John H Amos 1, oil on canvas, 2008 File:Medway Steam Boat 2.jpg|John H Amos 2, oil on canvas, 2008 File:Medway steam boat3.jpg|John H Amos 3, oil on canvas, 2008