Billy Childish (bornSteven John Hamper; 1 December 1959) is an English painter, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer, and guitarist. Since the late 1970s, Childish has been prolific in creating music, writing, and visual art. He has led and played in bands including Thee Milkshakes,Thee Headcoats, and the Musicians of the British Empire, primarily working in the genres ofgarage rock,punk, andsurf, and releasing more than 100 albums.
He is a consistent advocate for amateurism and free emotional expression. Childish co-founded theStuckismart movement withCharles 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 artist and writer Neal Brown, with an introduction byPeter Doig, which describes Childish as "one of the most outstanding, and often misunderstood, figures on the British art scene".[1] He is a visiting lecturer at Rochester Independent College.[2] In July 2014 Childish was awarded an honorary Doctor of Arts Degree from the University of Kent.[3]
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 novelsMy Fault (1996),Notebooks of a Naked Youth (1997), andSex 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 1987, Childish had a relationship with artistTracey Emin.[4]
Thirty years after Childish's first musical releases with Thee Milkshakes and Thee Mighty Caesars, a crop of lo-fi, surf rock and punk groups with psychedelic subtexts has surfaced referencing the aesthetic established by Childish in both their band names and in various aspects of their sonic aesthetic:[5]Thee Oh Sees, Thee Open Sex,[6] Thee Tsunamis,[7] Thee Dang Dangs, and many others.
Billy Childish was born, lives, and works inChatham, Kent. He has described his father, John Hamper, as a "complex, sociopathic narcissist": Hamper was jailed during Childish's teenage years for drug smuggling.[8] Although he had an early and close association with many of the artists who became known as "YBA" artists, he has resolutely asserted his independent status. He wassexually abused when he was aged nine by a male family friend: "We were on holiday. I had to share a bed with him. It happened for several nights, then I refused to go near him. I didn't tell anyone".[9]
He left secondary school at 16, an undiagnoseddyslexic. Refused an interview at the local art college, he enteredChatham Dockyard, Kent, as an apprentice stonemason. During the next six months (the artist’s only prolonged period of conventional employment), he produced some 600 drawings in "the tea huts of hell". On the basis of this work, he was accepted intoSaint Martin's School of Art, where he was friends with the artistPeter Doig, to study painting. However, his acceptance was short-lived and he was expelled in 1982 before completing the course. He then lived onthe dole for 15 years. In 2006, Childish turned down the offer to appear on Channel 4'sCelebrity Big Brother. Childish has practisedyoga andmeditation since the early 1990s.[10]
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 did a foundation year at Medway College of Design (now theUniversity for the Creative Arts) in 1977–78, and was then accepted onto the painting department of Saint Martin's School of Art in 1978, before quitting a month later. He was re-accepted at St Martin's in 1980, but was expelled in 1982 for refusing to paint in the art school and other unruly behaviour. At Saint Martin's, Childish became friends withPeter Doig, with whom he shared an appreciation ofMunch,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 artistTracey Emin,[11] whom he met after his expulsion from Saint Martin's 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 has exhibited extensively since the 1980s, and was featured in theBritish Art Show in 2000. In 2010, a major exhibition of Childish's paintings, writing, and music was held at The ICA London, with a concurrent painting show running at White Columns Gallery in New York City. In October 2012, alongsideArt Below, Childish presented his work at the exhibition Art Below Regents Park inRegent's Park Tube station to coincide withFrieze Art Fair, one of the most important international contemporary art fairs that takes place each October in London.[citation needed]
In 2013, Childish began a painting collaboration with Edgeworth Johnstone,[12][13] later titled Heckel's Horse.[14][15][16] Since 2013, afterCharles Thomson (who co-foundedStuckism with Childish in 1999) introduced Childish to Johnstone's work, Heckel's Horse have made over 150 oil paintings, mostly on six foot Belgian linen canvases in Childish's studio atChatham Dockyard inKent.[17][18] In 2024, Childish referred to Heckel's Horse as his "favourite work".[19]
walking in gods buti, Oil and charcoal on linen (274.5 x 183 cm), 2013
clamming on maud, Oil and charcoal on linen (183 x 305 cm), 2013
In 5 Minits You'll Know Me (sic), oil on canvas, 1997
In 2008, Childish formed the "non organisation" the British Art Resistance, and held an exhibition under the title Hero of the British Art Resistance at The Aquarium L-13 gallery in London: A collection of paintings, books, records, pamphlets, poems, prints, letters, film, photographs made in 2008.[20]
Childish made records of punk, garage, rock and roll, blues, folk, classical/experimental, spoken word and nursery rhymes. In a letter to Childish, the musicianIvor Cutler said of Childish: "You are perhaps too subtle and sophisticated for the mass market."[citation needed] Childish's groups include TV21, later known as thePop Rivets (1977–1980), sometimes spelled the Pop Rivits, with Bruce Brand, Romas Foord (replaced by Russell 'Big Russ' Wilkins) and Russell 'Little Russ' Lax.
Childish at the Shinjuku loft, Japan (early 1990s)
He later formed agarage rock-inspired band calledThee Milkshakes (1980–1984) with Micky Hampshire,Thee Mighty Caesars (1985–1989),The Delmonas thenThee Headcoats (1989–1999). In 2000, he formed Wild Billy Childish and the Friends of the Buff Medways Fanciers Association (2000–2006), named after a type of poultry bred in his hometown. The Buff Medways, or the Buffs, as they were sometimes affectionately known, split in 2006, and Wild Billy Childish and theMusicians of the British Empire (MBEs) were born, recording a song about one of Childish's heroes,George Mallory, titled "Bottomless Pit". In early 2007, Childish formedThe Vermin Poets with formerFire Dept singer and guitarist Neil Palmer and A-Lines guitarist and singer Julie Hamper, his wife. Thee Headcoats began their monthly residency at the Wild Western Room in the St John's Tavern, north London, in the early 1990s, and continued after moving to the Dirty Water Club in 1996. The MBEs played at the venue more or less once a month until February 2011.
On 11 September 2009, Damaged Goods Records – Childish's current label – issued a message to subscribers stating that Childish's wife Julie (Nurse Julie, bassist in the MBEs) was pregnant. Childish has since been recording as bass player withThe Spartan Dreggs, with Neil Palmer on vocals and guitar andWolf Howard on drums. From 2013, the MBEs reunited under the name Wild Billy Childish [or 'Chyldish'] andCTMF and as of the end of 2014 have released three albums.[21]
In 2014, Childish produced, played on and co-wrote (withDave Tattersall) most of the songs onThe Wave Pictures albumGreat Big Flamingo Burning Moon.[22]
Childish is a confessional poet and has published over 40 collections of his work. In 1979, Childish was a founder member ofThe Medway Poets, a poetry performance group, who read at the Kent Literature Festival and the 1981 internationalCambridge Poetry Festival. There were, however, personality clashes in the group, particularly between Childish andCharles Thomson, who said: "There was friction between us, especially when he started heckling my poetry reading and I threatened to ban him from a forthcoming TV documentary."[24]
However, aTelevision South documentary on the group in 1982 brought them to a wider regional audience, though Childish's poetry was "deemed unbroadcastable".According to Childish: "Me & Charles [sic] were at war from 1979 until 1999. He even threatened having bouncers on the doors of Medway Poets' readings to keep me out". Childish has twice won commendations in the National Poetry Prize.[citation needed]
During the 1980s, Childish was an influence on the artistTracey Emin, whom he met in 1982, after his expulsion from the painting department at Saint Martin's School of Art. Emin was a fashion student atMedway College of Design. Emin and Childish were a couple until 1987,[25] Emin selling his poetry books for his small pressHangman Books. In 1995 she was interviewed in theMinky Manky show catalogue byCarl Freedman, who asked her, "Which person do you think has had the greatest influence on your life?" She replied:
Uhmm... It's not a person really. It was more a time, going to Maidstone College of Art, hanging around with Billy Childish, living by the River Medway.[26]
In 1999 Childish and Thomson co-founded theStuckistart movement. Thomson coined the group name from Childish's "Poem for a Pissed Off Wife" (Big Hart and Balls 1994), where he had recorded Emin's remark to him:
"Your paintings are stuck, you are stuck! – Stuck! Stuck! Stuck!"
Billy Childish (far right) with the first Stuckists group at the Real Turner Prize Show, Pure Gallery, Shoreditch, London, in October 2000
The group was strongly pro-figurative painting and anti-conceptual art. Childish wrote a number of manifestos with Thomson, the first of which contained the statement:
"Artists who don't paint aren't artists."
The Stuckists soon achieved considerable press coverage, fuelled by Emin's nomination for theTurner Prize. They then announced the inauguration of a cultural period ofRemodernism to bring back spiritual values into art, culture and society. The formation of The Stuckists directly led to Emin severing her 14-year friendship with Childish in 1999. Childish has said: "The Stuckist art group was formed in 1999 at the instigation of Charles Thomson, the title of the group being taken from a poem of mine written and published in 1994. I disagreed with the way Charles presented the group, particularly in the media. For these reasons I left the Stuckists in 2001. I never attended any Stuckist demonstrations and my work was not shown in the large Stuckist exhibition held in the Walker Art Gallery in 2004."[25][dead link]
British artistStella Vine, who was a member of the Stuckists for a short time in 2001, first joined the group having developed a "crush" on Childish while attending his music events.[27] In June 2000, Vine went to a talk given by Childish and fellow Stuckist co-founderCharles Thomson on Stuckism andRemodernism, promoted by theInstitute of Ideas at the Salon des Arts, Kensington.[28] Vine formed The Unstuckists one month after joining, and has since said she did not agree with Stuckism's principles,[29] and described them as bullies.[30]
As a young man, Childish was highly influenced by Dada, and the work ofKurt Schwitters in particular. Childish has a Kurt Schwitters poem tattooed on his left buttock and made a short film on Schwitters's life, titled The Man with Wheels, (1980, directed by Eugean Doyan).[1]
In 2002, along withWolf Howard, Simon Williams and Julie Hamper, Childish formed The Chatham Super 8 Cinema. The group makes super 8 films on a second-hand camera Wolf Howard bought at a local flea market. In 2004, Childish released a 30-minute documentary titledBrass Monkey, about a march undertaken in Great War uniform commemorating the 90th anniversary of the British retreat from Mons in 1914.
The Smoking Dog Presents An Evening of Medway Blues (2005) (contributes threea cappella tracks "The Bitter Cup", "Black Girl" and "Out on the Western Plains")
Children of Nuggets (2005) (two songs included by Mickey and the Milkshakes – "It's You" and "Please Don't Tell My Baby")
10 No Good Poems of Slavery, Buggery, Boredom and Disrespect (1983)
Noting Can Stop This Man (1983)
The Unknown Stuff (1983)
Poems from the Barrier Block (1984)
Tear Life to Pieces (1985)
Poems Without Rhyme, Without Reason, Without Spelling, Without Words, Without Nothing (1985)
Monks Without God (1986)
Companions in a Death Boat (1987)
To the Quick (1988)
The Girl in the Tree (1988)
Maverick Verse (1988)
Admissions to Strangers (1989)
En Carne Viva (1989) Spanish/English
Death of a Wood (1989)
The Deathly Flight of Angels (1990)
Like a God i Love all Things (1991)
The Hart Rises (1992)
Trembling of Life (1993)
Poems of Laughter and Violence -Selected Poems 1981–1986 (1993)
Hunger at the Moon (1993)
Days with a Hart Like a Dog (1994)
Poems to Break the Harts of Impossible Princesses (1994)
Big Hart and Balls (1995)
This Puerile Thing (1996)
In 5 Minits You'll Know Me -Selected Poems 1985–1995 (1996)
A Terrible Hunger for Love (1997) Unpublished poems 1982–84
"I'd Rather You Lied" Selected Poems 1980–1998 (1999)
Chatham Town Welcomes Desperate Men (2000)
Evidence Against Myself (2003)
The Boss of All English Riters (2003)
Calling Things by Their Proper Names (2003)
Knite of the Sad Face (2004) Chap Book
The 1st Green Horse God has Ever Made (2004)
The Man with Gallows Eyes – Selected Poetry 1980–2005 (2005)
The River be My Blud: Medway Poems (1980-05)
This is My Shit and it Smells Good to Me (2008)
Old 4 Legs (2008)
Where the Tiger Prowls Stripped and Unseen (2008)
Gods Fantasic Colours (2008) – Hand stamped covers.Note: some copies appear with different titles and different author and publisher: 'Art War, Man Taken from Guts' and 'Insolunce in the Face of Art' being examples.
Unknowable but Certain (2009)
Paraffin Van (2011) (Also published under the title "I Fuckt Frida Kahlo" as a Faber and Faber lookalike.)
the sudden wren or painting lessons for poets and other mediochur cunts (2013)
In the Teeth of Deamons (2015)
1 of the rist (2016)
The Uncorrected (2018
If you fly with the crows... Selected Poetry 2015 – 2019 (2019)
Vipers Tongue Press Poetry Pamphlets (2020) – includes '100 yds of crash barrier' (Pamphlet 001), 'Cancer of the gallows' (Pamphlet 002), 'Poems nobody wants' (Pamphlet 003)
Billy Childish (3 Volume Catalogue Set in Slipcase – details 3 exhibitions at International Art Objects Galleries, Los Angeles, Lehmann Maupin, New York and neugerriemschneider, Berlin) – co-published & distributed by all 3 galleries and Koenig Books
walking in god's buti: selected paintings 2013–2014
unbegreiflich aber gewiss – Complete Catalogue of Paintings 2014–2017 (2017)
skulls wolfs nudes rope pullers and a nervous breakdown – neugerriemschneider, Berlin (2020)
Billy Childish has been a regular contributor toMineshaft magazine from 2003 to the present with his work appearing in issues 10, 13, 14, 18, 20 (front cover art), 28, 31, 33, 34, and 35.[52]
^ab"Billy Childish Profile". Archived fromthe original on 2 February 2014. Retrieved6 February 2016.My relationship with Tracey Emin finished in 1987 – 21 years ago, to be exact. Whilst I like and respect Tracey, and wish her well, the relationship is not significant in respect of my current life, and therefore I choose not to discuss it
