Untitled 2010

This is a print made by Billy Childish, probably with wood or linoleum, sometime during his prolific career, using maybe one or two colors—a dark, earthy red that’s both somber and kind of punk. It’s hard to know what the artist was thinking, but I like to imagine him, with the tools in his hand, carving into the surface, figuring out the image through making. It's a kind of skeleton figure with some blades of grass, or maybe it’s a picket fence, who knows, it's so beautifully ambiguous, maybe the figure is Death, maybe it's not... The lines are so sure and scratchy, and the texture is raw. I like how rough it all feels, like the print is yelling, “I’m here, I'm alive, I’m not precious!” Childish comes from a lineage of painters who aren’t afraid to be messy or emotional—folks like Munch or Kirchner, or even outsider artists who just need to get something out, and that energy connects us to their work.