Billy Childish

Billy Childish (born Steven John Hamper, 1 December 1959) is an English artist, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer and guitarist. He is known for his explicit and prolific work — he has detailed his love life and childhood sexual abuse, notably in his early poetry and the novels My Fault (1996), Notebooks of a Naked Youth (1997), Sex Crimes of the Futcher (2004) — The Idiocy of Idears (2007), and in several of his songs, notably in th... more

Billy Childish (born Steven John Hamper, 1 December 1959) is an English artist, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer and guitarist. He is known for his explicit and prolific work — he has detailed his love life and childhood sexual abuse, notably in his early poetry and the novels My Fault (1996), Notebooks of a Naked Youth (1997), Sex Crimes of the Futcher (2004) — The Idiocy of Idears (2007), and in several of his songs, notably in the instrumental Peodaphile, Clawfist Records (1992) (featuring a photograph of the man who sexually abused him on the front cover, and Every Bit of Me, Damaged Goods Records, (1993). From 1981 till 1985 Childish had a relationship with artist Tracey Emin and has also been associated with another British artist Stella Vine. He is a consistent advocate for amateurism and free emotional expression and was a co-founder of the Stuckism art group in 1999, which he left in 2001. Since then a new evaluation of Childish's standing in the art world has... less