Beschreibung:

Billy Childish Self-Portrait 2005-2006 Oil on canvas. 92 x 71 cm (36 1/4 x 28 in).
Provenance Brandler Galleries, Brentwood Exhibited Brentwood, Brandler Galleries, London prices and Brentwood prices, July - August 2010 Catalogue Essay Billy Childish follows a different path to that of most artists. His prolific creative practice encompasses not only painting, but also poetry, photography, writing (including several novels) and music (with over 30 recordings to his name). He pioneered a fusion of punk and blues and has been the lead figure in numerous bands, including Thee Milkshakes (1980–84), Thee Mighty Caesars (1985–89) and Thee Headcoats (1989–99). His paintings are for the most part figurative self-portraits, and indeed the basis of his practice throughout all of his work has been biographical or autobiographical in some form. The early influences on his painting, especially the work of Edvard Munch and Vincent van Gogh are clear in the broad, even urgent brushstrokes with which Childish applies the paint and in his colour palette – his whole approach in fact echoes the anxiety and pressure of emotion that we associate with those earlier painters. The work of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Die Brücke provides another resource for Childish’s vision – the raw expressionism of the angular features, for example, in the artist’s face and eyes seen in the present lot are typical in their reworking of an earlier master. Billy Childish is, of course, well-known for having been one of the names prominently displayed in Tracey Emin’s tent, Everyone I ever Slept with 1963–1995 (1995) and the two artists have been famously associated with each other for many years. Another artist who knows and admires Childish is Peter Doig who has written in his introduction to Neal Brown’s study of Childish, that "Billy’s is a life project that is unwavering, and I suggest not getting in the way". Brown himself, who has also written on Tracey Emin says of Childish’s art: "Painterly nuance is not necessarily the point of Childish’s work. A conspicuous emotional register is – particularly moods that it might be possible to summarise as those of poetic exhilaration. This expressive excitement is not necessarily pleasant, but always emotionally vital, and resonates conspicuously through the artist’s painting, writing, poetry and music." (N. Brown, Billy Childish A Short Study, London, 2008) Read More