Photographer: Richard Billingham
Richard Billingham is an English photographer and artist whose best known work is ‘Ray’s A Laugh’- a photobook documenting the life of his alcoholic father Ray, and obese, heavily tattooed mother, Liz.
Billingham was born in Birmingham, and studied as a painter at Bournville College of Art and the University of Sunderland. He came to prominence through his candid photography of his family in Cradley Heath which later became Ray’s A Laugh, published in 1996. In 1997 Billingham was included in the exhibition Sensation at the Royal Academy of Art which showcased the art collection of Charles Saatchi and included many of the Young British Artists. In the same year, Billingham won the Citigroup Photography Prize. He was shortlisted for the 2001 Turner prize, for his solo show at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham.
Billingham has also made landscape photographs at places of personal significance around the Black Country; more of these were commissioned in 2003 by the arts organisation The Public, resulting in a book. In late 2006 Billingham, on commission by Birmingham-based arts organisation VIVID exhibited a major new series of photographs and videos inspired by his memories of visiting Dudley Zoo as a child. In the following year he created a series of photographs of ‘Constable Country’, the area on the Essex / Suffolk border painted by John Constable.
Billingham now lives near Swansea, but travels widely. He is a lecturer in fine art photography at the University of Gloucestershire and a third year tutor at Middlesex University
Work: Ray’s A Laugh
Billingham started out as a painter, but later bought some cheap cameras and films to take photographs of his parents in a very intimate space. His intention was not to make a body of work as a photographer, but to take pictures he could use as the basis of his paintings; it was very difficult to get his father Ray, an alcoholic, to sit still for any length of time. The photographs allowed Billingham to make more detailed paintings from the photographic reference.
For the project on his parents he was inspired by British post-impressionist and 19th century painters that painted about everyday life. He particularly liked the painters that could situate the figure in an interior really well, almost as if the figures are part of that interior; they really inhabit it, they’re part of it. His mother Liz left to live in a neighbouring tower block due to Ray’s alcoholism which had tormented him since being made redundant. Ray, saddened that Liz had left to live in a neighbouring flat, stayed in his bedroom all day and night drinking; there was no structure to day or night. There was around 18-24 months of never going out. A neighbour in the tower block made homebrew and delivered it to Ray. He also cashed Ray’s giro at the post office and paid his bills, and gave Ray the change. Billingham thinks Ray possibly drank so much during this time because he thought Liz would feel sorry for him and come home.
Billingham didn’t care if the images he took were blurred as long as they gave an idea for a painting. There were also mistakes in several of the frames, like black on one edge where the flash didn’t sync with the shutter speed. The composition of the images came from looking at the work of other painters, and he was always thinking formally about composition, and trying to make a picture. He would also sometimes place his thumb over the lens to create an area of black to balance other elements in the frame. During the time of making this work he never looked at the work of other photographers. He didn’t particular take care of the negatives, which were frequently covered in scratches and dust. He did however experiment with different types of film.
As well as his parents, and later his brother who returned to live in the flat after being in foster care, Billingham also took advantage of items in his father’s room and around the flat. He became aware of how his parents placed objects, and their juxtaposition. On one of his trips home during his painting studies at Sunderland University, he found his father had moved into his mother’s flat. It was full of pets and opulent colours. With a portrait you have to see someone’s identity, but in this picture (Liz with jigsaw puzzle) you can’t really see what she looks like, but you can see what she’s about.
Editor Michael Collins started showing Billingham books of photographs; he didn’t know they existed before then. After this he realised the work he was doing would make a good a photo book.
References
Chobi Mela, (2016). Richard Billingham: Artist Talk@ Chobimela VII. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu8XLg0Zskc [Accessed 21 Jun. 2016].
Wikipedia. (2016). Richard Billingham. [online] Available at: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Billingham [Accessed 21 Jun. 2016].
No comments:
Post a Comment