Get Stuck on art

11:43am Wednesday 25th June 2008

CHARLES Thomson is one of the founder members of Stuckism, created in 1999 in response to the high level of conceptual art having money and media attention thrown at it.

A good example is Tracey Emin's bed and a pickled shark by Damien Hurst - both exhibited at the Tate Modern.

The Stuckists - now an international movement of 175 groups in 41 countries - believe that painting is art and want to see more work by figurative painters exhibited in London's galleries.

Mr Thomson, pictured above, an outspoken and controversial artist, 55, said: "The idea of conceptualism is to find something that isn't art, put it in a gallery and call it that. I don't think it has any value because I look at my own bed every morning when I get out of it.

"It has always had a communication about my life experiences or those who have shared it with me, by why thrust it in front of a nation? It has no meaning. It has to me, but not for anyone else.

"What we want is something that has more meaning, subtlety and communication in it. People don't like beds. Somebody needed to stand up and say this because many people are scared. It is like the Emperor's New Clothes because no one wants to feel out of favour with the big galleries."

The name Stuckism is said to have come from an insult from 1999 Turner Prize Nominee, Tracey Emin, to ex-boyfriend and Stuckist co-founder Billy Childish, when she said: "Your paintings are stuck, you are stuck! Stuck! Stuck! Stuck!".

This was quoted in a poem by Mr Childish and Mr Thomson subsequently coined the term and proposed joining forces to found a group.

The rebellious Stuckists have, for seven years, been demonstrating outside the Turner prize exhibition dressed as a clown in protest against the Turner prize, which they see as a joke because of its tradition of awarding conceptual artists.

The Stuckists' latest campaign is an online petition to Gordon Brown to sack the movement's enemy, Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate gallery, in an attempt to get more modern paintings or sculptures, exhibited.

On Monday, Mr Thomson will be bringing his contentious views to Leytonstone, when he gives a talk for the Waltham Forest Arts Club entitled, "Why the Stuckists are asking Gordon Brown to sack the boss of the Tate".

He said of the petition: "It allows people to make a statement, otherwise these processes are closed books. Many people don't like what is happening at the Tate because he is following his own preferences for conceptual art and video without collecting paintings. So in the future, if people want to know what's being painted at this time, it won't be in the Tate."

Charles Thomson's best known work is a satire of Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate gallery, and Tracey Emin, with whom he was friends in the 1980s.

He paints in bright colours with black outlines, and cites his influences for this from Japanese woodblock prints, Van Gogh and German Expressionism.

Charles Thomson's talk is on Monday (June 30) at 7.45pm upstairs at the Sheepwalk pub, Leytonstone High Street. Admission is free.

The talk is promoted by the Waltham Forest Arts Club, and marks the start of the first Leytonstone Arts Trail, set up by Anna Spain.

The Leytonstone Art Trail map and the Leytonstone Festival Programme will be available on the night.

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