Barry Bish

Born 1961 in South East London.

I left school at 17 to work as a studio junior at a Fleet Street graphic studio producing artwork for comics and magazines. I went on to freelance for the next ten years as a finished artist and line illustrator.

I gave it all up in the 80s with the advent of computers, and moved to Los Angeles where I stayed for 12 years after meeting my wife Tammy and having a daughter, Serena. It was around this time that I started painting on canvas and stopped drawing on paper. I took to the profession of ‘painter’ to earn a living.

I painted houses, boats, film and theatre sets and eventually even people. I have sold designs that have been made into fabrics, T-shirts and postcards. I assisted and exhibited with pop artist Robert Fisher and Andre Miropolski in various mixed exhibitions in L.A., San Francisco and Chicago.

I was represented for a while by Liz Blackman and her Outside-In Gallery on Melrose Ave in L.A., where I exhibited alongside the likes of Howard Finster. I was introduced to bodypainting by renowned makeup artist and body painter Joanne Gair and assisted her in creative projects involving the likes of actress Demi Moore, singer Janet Jackson, and some other big Hollywood names. Farrah Fawcett owns a self portrait in Green that I did for her.

I really view this type of work in much the same light as painting a chair or a T.V. set. Since returning to London in 1997 I have continued painting houses, boats, film/theatre sets and occasionally people.

My life revolves around paint, sometimes mixed on a palette, sometimes mixed by the barrel.

I drew a dragon on Lawrence Dellaglio’s back for the Sun newspaper, did makeup for Nick Haslim for a Tatler shoot and one of my paintings featured in the background of a Coca Cola commercial. I was featured in a double page spread in the Arts section of the Daily Telegraph in 1999 and Now magazine ran an article on me soon after, more interested in the Hollywood connections than the actual work involved.

I’ve exhibited in London with the Stuckists for a while alongside Billy Childish and Charles Thompson. All my paintings tell a story and some are quite biographical. In the past I have done little to sell or promote myself and most of my paintings are sold by word of mouth.

Although self-taught, I do not consider myself an ‘outsider artist’, I just like to fill blank space with colour and energy.