Stuckism Charles Thomson text

Biography

Moved from a house in Finchley by a stream to Shoreditch and back. Ex-wives include Stella Vine.

1953 Born, Romford, Essex
1964-70 Brentwood School, Essex in same class as Douglas 'Hitchhiker' Adams
1969 Founded Havering Arts Lab for Performance Art ("Sex Orgy Tale - Group Banned", Havering Express)
1971 Stood for Havering Council as Dwarf Candidate (22 votes)
1970-72 'Betterwear' door to door brush salesman. Self-employed 'underground' magazine distributor (including Schoolkids OZ)
1973-79 Thurrock Technical College, Foundation Art. Maidstone College of Art, FFIAD (First Fail in a Decade)
1979 Member of the Medway Poets
1979-87 Part-time telephonist/receptionist, Kent County Ophthalmic and Aural Hospital
1987-99 Full-time poet. 2000 poems and work in 100 anthologies. Performed in 700 schools
1979 Resumed paintingafter fifteen-year abstinence
1999- Full-time artist
1999 Conceived of, then co-founded The Stuckists with Billy Childish
2001 Stuckist General Election candidate. Second marriage, in New York, to Stella Vine, lasted two months. Reported Charles Saatchi to the Office of Fair Trading
2002-05 Director Stuckism International Gallery, Shoreditch
2004 Featured artist and co-curator, The Stuckists Punk Victorian, Walker Art Gallery, for the Liverpool Biennial
2005 Campaigned against the Tate's purchase of trustee work, which led to a Charity Commission censure
2006 Go West show, Spectrum London

Spent most of the last eight years promoting Stuckism, organising anti-Turner Prize clown protests and being accosted by Sir Nicholas Serota in Trafalgar Square. Has studied Kabbalah and astrology for thirty years. Practices past life therapy. National poetry prizewinner. First commercial artwork at the age of five - sold a drawing of his teddy bear to granddad for a penny. Arrested in 1972 for protesting against pollution in Oxford Street. Has a son fanatical about motor racing.

Working method

"I see my artistic influences from Japanese woodblock prints, Impressionism, Van Gogh and German Expressionism. I don't like Pop Art on the whole, because I find it uses the 'cartoon' style in a mechanical soul-less fashion. I depict what I experience as honestly as I can. This generates subject matter and style. I do line drawings spontaneously and uncorrected with a black wax crayon in a sketchbook. Then I choose one, blow it up on the canvas and paint the black line in acrylic. The colour is oil paint (Old Holland) and nearly always remains the first colour I paint in - though it can take an hour to mix it. I feel what the colour should be. The final image is a synthesis of material, emotional and spiritual experience.

"I Feel Bad When I Reject Your Love" painting

"Based on something a (now ex) girlfriend said to me. I thought it was a negative picture, but then I realised it was positive because it's a reconciliation after self-knowledge. It's also ambiguous as to who's speaking. Most of my paintings are based on experiences with people I know, usually on a drawing from life, but in this case from a photo I took of her. She can't really complain because she exhibits paintings of my willy.

Quotes

"Charles Thomson's works manage to reach some sort of 'collective archetypal storage' and pull stuff out in the air, stuff that has something strong to say to anyone who takes the time to peruse a painting." - Odysseus Yakoumakis

"There is an emotional charge present throughout your work. Your still life paintings always suggest human relationships. Many of your paintings of women have a complexity or at least you suggest this." - Peter McArdle

Charles Thomson interviewed about himself and the Tate gallery on artistica.co.uk:
"The result of walking round Tate Modern is not an experience of the marvel of creative profundity which gives meaning to life, but more akin to the detritus of a dryly analytical bureaucrat reverting to an infantile stage during an extended breakdown."

Links

Essays

Some of the text is based on The Stuckists Punk Victorian book (National Museums Liverpool)