Heckels Horse at work: Billy Childish and Edgeworth painting at Chatham Dockyards. Photograph by Rikard Österlund.
This website presents the collaborative paintings made by Billy Childish and Edgeworth Johnstone between 2013 and 2020. They are painted under the collective title Heckel’s Horse.
Says Billy Childish:
“Our collaboration started when, after seeing some of Edgeworth’s paintings that were loosely influenced by aspects of my work from the 1990's, I invited him to come into my studio to paint regularly on my painting day (Mondays).
I had actually been interested in finding a way back to making more elemental paintings - like i made in the 1990’s - that unfold from the unconscious without relying on technical skills. I saw and understood what Edgeworth was doing and on offering some feedback and the approach I would take, I picked up the brush and, with his permission, painted into the work. We both liked the result and so the collaboration was born.
Since then we have made some 150 paintings together. We still work on our own separate paintings but once every few weeks I cross over to Edgeworth’s side of the studio and with little discussion I add/subtract from a canvas we have chosen to undertake together.
This process reveals our shared aesthetics, resulting in an immediate dreamlike imagery that really does spring mysteriously from the subconscious.”
In this way, a painting is usually started by Edgeworth with some agreed theme or starting point. Billy then responds to what Edgeworth has started. Sometimes the painting will be completed in one sitting, other times Billy will return the painting to Edgeworth and the process will begin over again. The earlier works were more frenetic with heavily impasto’d paint, but over time a more delicate, ethereal quality has developed both in technique and imagery.
Here, we present a selection of these extraordinary paintings that form a significant body of work. We will add more over time and are working on a book to catalogue it all.
Reproduction prints are available through the L-13 Light Industrial Workshop website: www.L-13.org
To purchase original works please contact Steve Lowe via L-13@L-13.org.