PRESS RELEASE

I AM THE GOOD ARTIST

Paintings by BILLY CHILDISH and NEAL JONES

14th October - 13th November 2009

Private View: Tuesday 13th October 6.30 - 9.00 pm

L-13 Light Industrial Workshop, Clerkenwell.

"What unifies the different practices of these two painters, is a recurrent theme of engagement with the self and our world through the act of painting; this in turn is played out through various degrees of aesthetic and meritocratic discomfort, acute artistic and cultural ambition, and spiritual elevation. Their quest suggests that it is possible for artists of this generation (in Post-Crisis Culture?) to address themes of universal wellbeing through elemental means without betraying their contemporary or radical credentials."Harold Rosenbloom 2009

Billy Childish paints in a small studio at his mother's house in Whitstable. He is also an internationally recognised artist and writer who exhibits, performs, and is published around the world. His paintings reside in numerous private collections including Jeremy Paxman and the artist Peter Doig.

Neal Jones paints in a small studio he built on his beautifully attended allotment in North London. He was a prizewinner in John Moores 25 (a prize aimed at showcasing "the best of British painting"), and has work held in numerous private collections including HRH Prince of Wales and the artist Jake Chapman.

Both make paintings that exude a raw, direct, sometimes brutal, sometimes gentle power. They are paintings of great audacity, humour and a strange bravery that seem to defy both themselves and the great destructive forces of our time without pandering to simplistic totemism, political posturing or easy stylistic solutions. These are challenging and extraordinary paintings with many blemishes that people fed on a diet of iPods and polished apples may find difficult accept.

This is the first two person show to be held at L-13 and is aimed at promoting a dialogue between the artists that will in turn, promote a dialogue with the wider world in pursuit of ideas that seek a radical change in the totality of life.

A film of the artists in conversation will be made by Sebastian Sharples to accompany and document the exhibition.

Please contact Steve Lowe for further information.

e-mail: L-13@L-13.org
tel: 020 7713 8255
mob: 07734 006 327

NOTES

BILLY CHILDISH
Born in 1959 in Chatham, Kent, William Hamper aka Billy Childish left Secondary education at 16 an undiagnosed dyslexic. Refused an interview at the local art school, he entered the Naval Dockyard at Chatham as an apprentice stonemason. During the following six months (his only prolonged period of employment), he produced some six hundred drawings in 'the tea huts of hell.' On the basis of this work he was accepted into St Martin's School of Art to study painting, where he refused to paint in college, so as "not to be contaminated", preferring to do so at home. He was thus expelled for this and other unruly behaviour. Since then, and despite a continued resistance to and from orthodox bodies, he has created a huge and challenging body of work through his own highly personal art practice and eagerness to engage with life on his own elemental terms.

NEAL JONES
Born in Liverpool in 1969, Neal Jones was raised in Blackpool. He attended Canterbury College of Art and Design 1989-92. Since 2000 he has painted in a self-built London allotment studio. Following a bursary to study at The Prince's Drawing School London 2003, he taught there 2006. In 2008 he was a prizewinner in John Moores 25. His recent exhibitions include small is beautiful, Flowers East, London and Winter Salon, Temple Bar, Dublin, and In London 09, 40 at 40, Art Against Knives, Artworks open, RA summer show, 'Kuskog' Vyner street and 'Look out' a solo show in Tess Jaray's shed. His writing and drawings have been published this year in Blunter Edge magazine.

SEBASTIAN SHARPLES
Born 1961 in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, weighing 12 and a half stone.
Primrose hill, David Bailey, Divorce, France, Motorcycles, Punk rock, Photography, John Galliano, Synth pop, Hackney, Jessamy Calkin, Rair computers, Van driving, Sony video cameras, pop promos, Massive attack, Kim West, Naked city, Tracey Emin, Paul Weller, Children, White cube, Caterpillar/Camper shoes, Juergen Teller, Jeff Buckley, BBC Music, Time trail, Digital photography.

L-13 LIGHT INDUSTRIAL WORKSHOP
The L-13 Light Industrial Workshop and Private Ladies and Gentlemen's Club for Art, Leisure and the Disruptive Betterment of Culture is an independent contemporary art space based in Clerkenwell, London.

L-13 seeks to reinvigorate and subvert pre-conceived ways in which art is considered and produced, blurring the distinctions between art production, dialogue and exhibition.

We not only represent but also work in close and long-term collaboration with a distinct group of artists who, through multifaceted creative practices, share a fondness for candid social criticism and a betrothed, playful approach to the serious process of making art.

Its name, and the aspect of faded Victorian distinction that permeates L-13, is emblematic of a decision to bring creativity, wit and engagement to the exhibition space itself. Hereditary of a radical utopian ethos, L-13 owes much to a spirit of collaboration, confrontation and ecstatic experience that is more dependent on an anti-art tradition rather than that of fine art. And, without exclusively pandering to either popularist or elitist strategies, L-13 enables the publishing, production and exhibition of its own artists whilst seeking the critical dialogue and involvement of other like-minded artists, institutions, and commentators.

L-13 Light Industrial Workshop
31 Eyre Street Hill
Clerkenwell
London EC1R 5EW

www.L-13.org