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Charles Thomson (artist)

Charles Thomson (born February 6, 1953) is an English artist, painter, poet, photographer. In the early 1980s he was a member of The Medway Poets. In 1999 he named and co-founded the Stuckists art movement with Billy Childish. He has curated Stuckist shows, organised demonstrations against the Turner Prize, run an art gallery, stood for parliament and reported Charles Saatchi to the OFT. He is frequently quoted in the media as an opponent of conceptual art. He was briefly married to artist Stella Vine.

Early life

Charles Thomson was born in Romford, London Borough of Havering, East London, England, and educated at Brentwood School, Essex, where he was class mates with Douglas Adams. While still at school he organised mixed media arts events and contributed to Broadsheet, a magazine edited by Paul Neil Milne Johnstone and published by Artsphere, a school arts group. Outside school, he started the Havering Arts Lab. this resulted in a headline "Sex Orgy Tale—Group Banned" in the local Havering Express newspaper. In 1971 he stood (unsuccessfully) as a Dwarf candidate in the Havering council elections, and was involved in ant-pollution protests. He distributed "underground" magazines around London, including "Schoolkids Oz". In 1975 he went to Maidstone College of Art, where he was the only person in ten years to fail the painting degree. 1979–87 he worked part-time as a telephonist and receptionist at Kent County Ophthalmic and Aural Hospital. 1987–99 he was a full-time poet, with work in over 100 anthologies.

The Medway Poets

In 1979, Thomson was a founder member of The Medway Poets, a punk performance group, who read in pubs, as well as the Kent Literature Festival and the 1981 Cambridge International Poetry Festival. There were, however, personality clashes in the group, particularly between Billy Childish and Thomson, who said, "There was friction between us, especially when he started heckling my poetry reading and I threatened to ban him from a forthcoming TV documentary." However, a TV South documentary on the group in 1982 brought them to a wider regional audience. According to Childish: "Me & Charles were at war from 1979 until 1999. He even threatened having bouncers on the doors of Medway poet’s readings to keep me out. Thomson has said this period was "an incredibly pressured and creative time and established the basis on which we are still working. Other members included future Stuckist artists Bill Lewis and Sexton Ming. Tracey Emin, then a local student, was on the out skirts of the group, being the girlfriend of Billy Childish. In 1987 Thomson printed her first book of writing, Turkish Tales, which had been edited by Lewis and was published by Childish.

Stuckism

In 1999 Thomson was reconciled with Childish and together they founded the Stuckists art group with eleven other artists. Thomson coined the name "Stuckism" after an insult from Tracey Emin to ex-boyfriend Childish that he was "stuck", which Childish had recorded in a 1993 poem. The group stated its aims as promoting figurative painting and opposing conceptual art, being particularly critical of the Turner Prize and Charles Saatchi's promotion of Britart. Childish left the group in 2001 and Thomson remained as the figurehead, gaining extensive media coverage for his activities and outspoken views. In the meantime the Stuckists grew to a worldwide movement of over 100 groups in 30 countries.

2000-5 he staged yearly Stuckist demonstrations against the Turner Prize (making use of props such as clown costumes and blow-up sex dolls). He stood for the United Kingdom general election, 2001 as a Stuckist candidate against the then-Culture Secretary, Chris Smith. The same year he exhibited the then-unknown artist, Stella Vine (later made famous by Charles Saatchi). The couple married in New York and separated after two months.

Thomson opened the Stuckism International Gallery in Shoreditch (2002-2005). In 2004 he reported Saatchi to the OFT (Office of Fair Trading) for alleged unfair trading practices in the art world: the complaint was not upheld. He co-curated the Stuckists' first major exhibition in a public gallery, The Stuckists Punk Victorian show at the Walker Art Gallery, for the 2004 Liverpool Biennial. In 2005 he offered of a donation of 175 paintings by Stuckists artists from the Walker Gallery show to the Tate Gallery: this was rejected by the trustees. Later that year he obtained Tate Gallery minutes about the purchase of a trustee Chris Ofili's work The Upper Room under the Freedom of Information Act. This led to an ongoing press controversy about the purchase and resulted into an official investigation by the Charity Commission, who censured the Tate in July 2006 for acting outside its legal powers.

In June 2006 he wrote to the British Prime Minister Tony Blair asking him to intervene in the case of Stuckist artist Michael Dickinson, who was facing a possible 3 year jail sentence in Turkey for exhibiting a satirical collage of the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

In October 2006, Thomson exhibited paintings and presented an academic paper in both the Triumph of Stuckism exhibition and symposium respectively . Both these events were organised by Naive John for the 2006 Liverpool Biennial at the invitation of Professor Colin Fallows, Chair of Contextual Studies at Liverpool School of Art and Design.

He writes a regular arts column for , which carries work by a number of Stuckists, ex-Stuckists and their opponents.

Art

His satirical painting of Sir Nicholas Serota, Sir Nicholas Serota Makes an Acquisitions Decision, has been widely reproduced in the media and become a Stuckist icon. It has been reviewed:

Thomson has painted what must be the masterpiece of Stuckism so far: Sir Nicholas Serota Makes an Acquisitions Decision. Here the slick handling and smartass irony of Britart are turned on its champion to make a very funny point and a rather good portrait. This is an example of what the Situationists called detournement, using your enemies' own weapons against him.

However, Sarah Kent (a staunch advocate of Britart) was less impressed with the satire: "One might forgive his puerile humour if Thomson didn't consider it a serious weapon ... cut the ranting and Thomson could be a reasonable painter.

Thomson pointed out in response, "it's reality. A few weeks after I did the painting, Tracey Emin was shown on TV getting very angry about an installation because someone had substituted another pair of knickers for hers ... That makes it a bit sad.

In October 2006, Thomson's painting of Serota was exhibited during the Stuckists' Go West show at Spectrum London gallery in London. It was suggested that this could be seen as revenge for the Tate's rejection of a Stuckist donation of 175 paintings the previous year. He was also accused of revenge for exhibiting in the show two paintings of strippers, which he said were based on his ex wife and one-time stripper, Stella Vine, who was a member of the Stuckists group at the time of their marriage in 2001, but soon left to make a solo career. Rivalry increased when her work was promoted by Charles Saatchi in 2004. Thomson denied any intention of vengeance with the paintings and said, "I would prefer her to enjoy these, as I still enjoy her art".

Work method

Thomson typically paints figuratively with black outlines and areas of flat colour, often brightly coloured. The painting, I Feel Bad When I Reject Your Love is not typical in this respect. He has commented on it:

"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 nude paintings of me."

The paintings are based on spontaneous line drawings with a black wax crayon in a sketchbook. These are enlarged on the canvas. The colour is usually the first one on the canvas, though mixing it can take up to an hour. He likens colour to feeling and concludes:

"The final image is a synthesis of material, emotional and spiritual experience."