| Description |
BILLY CHILDISH. all apparent achievements and misdemeanours are non defining (Neugerriemschneider, Berlin 2013) / paintings that change the universe like digging in the gutter with a broken lolly stick (Lehmann Maupin, New York 2013) / animal totems lying poets and other mundane renditions in paint (International Art Objects Galleries, Los Angeles 2013)
The three-volume catalogue documents Childish's paintings of the last two years. If Childish had previously turned to kindred protagonists from Modernity such as Dostoyevsky or Robert Walser, he is now devoting himself to lost explorers and frontiers of a different kind. The past and present, the exotic and the familiar are merged in highly charged and personal imagery. In all of this, a keen understanding of draughtsmanship and the value of abandoning sophistication yields an experimental negotiation with painting hovering on the threshold of reality and fiction, of role-playing and existential veracity. |