Joe Machine
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Joe Machine (born Joseph Stokes,Buckman, David (2006), ''Dictionary of Artists in Britain since 1945'', p. 1018, Art Dictionaries, Bristol, 2006, 6 April 1973) is an
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
artist, poet and writer. He is a founding member of the Stuckists art group.Milner, Frank ed. (2004), ''The Stuckists Punk Victorian'', p. 90, National Museums Liverpool,


Life

Joseph Machine was born in
Chatham Chatham may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Canada * Chatham Islands (British Columbia) * Chatham Sound, British Columbia * Chatham, New Brunswick, a former town, now a neighbourhood of Miramichi * Chatham (electoral district), New Brunswic ...
,
Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
, and comes from a Romany background on the
Isle of Sheppey The Isle of Sheppey is an island off the northern coast of Kent, England, neighbouring the Thames Estuary, centred from central London. It has an area of . The island forms part of the local government district of Swale. ''Sheppey'' is derived ...
. In 1988 Machine was sent to Alston House Approved School, Rochester, for the theft of scrap material, and the following year to Dover
Borstal A Borstal was a type of youth detention centre in the United Kingdom, several member states of the Commonwealth and the Republic of Ireland. In India, such a detention centre is known as a Borstal school. Borstals were run by HM Prison Service ...
for young offenders, after burgling a greengrocers in Leysdown (Isle of Sheppey). He spent time claiming benefits and running the family business, an amusement arcade in Leysdown, as well as breeding
Rottweiler The Rottweiler (, ) is a breed of domestic dog, regarded as medium-to-large or large. The dogs were known in German as , meaning Rottweil butchers' dogs, because their main use was to herd livestock and pull carts laden with butchered mea ...
dogs and working as a bouncer in South London night clubs. He started painting around 1988 and has not had any formal college art training. He has described creativity as the way out of the background in which he felt trapped: "Painting and writing have been far better for me than any of the mistakes I made in stealing and fighting." In 1999 he was one of the 13 original founder members of the Stuckists, an anti-conceptual art group co-founded by
Billy Childish Billy Childish (born Steven John Hamper, 1 December 1959) is an English painter, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer and guitarist. Since the late 1970s, Childish has been prolific in creating music, writing and visual art. He has le ...
and
Charles Thomson Charles Thomson (November 29, 1729 – August 16, 1824) was an Irish-born Patriot leader in Philadelphia during the American Revolution and the secretary of the Continental Congress (1774–1789) throughout its existence. As secretary, Thomson ...
. His painting ''Diana Dors With an Axe'' was used on the front cover of the first book on the group, ''The Stuckists'', and also to promote the show ''The Real Turner Prize Show'' in Shoreditch in 2000. Machine has exhibited widely with the Stuckists, most notably in their first national museum exhibition, at the
Walker Art Gallery The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England outside London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group. History of the Gallery The Walker Art Gallery's collection ...
for the 2004
Liverpool Biennial Liverpool Biennial is the largest international contemporary art festival in the United Kingdom. Every two years, the city of Liverpool hosts an extensive range of artworks, projects, and a programme of events. The biennial commissions leading ...
. The exhibition, titled ''
The Stuckists Punk Victorian ''The Stuckists Punk Victorian'' was the first national gallery exhibition of Stuckist art.Moss, Richard"Stuckist's Punk Victorian gatecrashes Walker's Biennial Culture24, 17 September 2004. Retrieved 3 December 2009. It was held at the Walker A ...
'', was a definitive showing of the Stuckist oeuvre, and Machine was one of the "featured artists". Reviewing the Walker show,
Mark Lawson Mark Gerard Lawson is an English journalist, broadcaster and author. Specialising in culture and the arts, he is best known for presenting the flagship BBC Radio 4 arts programme ''Front Row (radio programme), Front Row'' between 1998 and 2014. ...
commented, referring to Machine's painting, ''Sea Shanty'': :Although they set themselves against conceptual art, they're certainly not standing up for conventional painting. These are very bold and explicit images, particularly a painting over to my left, in which a sailor is taking another sailor from behind... is probably about as far as we can go in describing it. And that is an image, which is very bold, very explicit, and could lead to protests and complaints. In January 2005, he took part in a Stuckist protest at the launch of the ''Triumph of Painting'' show at the
Saatchi Gallery The Saatchi Gallery is a London gallery for contemporary art and an independent charity opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985. Exhibitions which drew upon the collection of Charles Saatchi, starting with US artists and minimalism, moving to the D ...
in London. In December that year he was part of the Stuckist protest outside the
Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...
at
Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...
to draw attention to the Tate's purchase of its trustee
Chris Ofili Christopher Ofili, (born 10 October 1968) is a British Turner Prize-winning painter who is best known for his paintings incorporating elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists. Since 2005, Ofili has been living and working in Trin ...
's work ''
The Upper Room The Cenacle (from the Latin , "dining room"), also known as the Upper Room (from the Koine Greek and , both meaning "upper room"), is a room in Mount Zion in Jerusalem, just outside the Old City walls, traditionally held to be the site of t ...
'' and demand the resignation of Tate Director, Sir
Nicholas Serota Sir Nicholas Andrew Serota, (born 27 April 1946) is an English art historian and curator, who served as the Director of the Tate from 1988 to 2017. He is currently Chair of Arts Council England, a role which he has held since February 2017. Se ...
."Shed Wins $58,000 Art Prize"
''
The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...
'', 6 December 2005. Retrieved 6 April 2008.
Machine was one of the ten leading Stuckist artists to show in the Go West at
Spectrum London Spectrum London was a London art gallery which showed contemporary figurative painting, photography and sculpture. It staged '' Go West'', the first commercial West End show of the Stuckists, and a retrospective by Sebastian Horsley. It closed ...
gallery in October 2006, where six of his paintings sold in advance of the show opening. Machine commented on the Stuckists: "some of the paintings are not all that marvellous ... But everyone's painting and getting involved".
Billy Childish Billy Childish (born Steven John Hamper, 1 December 1959) is an English painter, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer and guitarist. Since the late 1970s, Childish has been prolific in creating music, writing and visual art. He has le ...
owns a Machine painting of a woman slashing her wrists, which he describes as "quite disturbing".Kinnes, Sally
"What's over Your Mantelpiece?"
''
The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...
'', 3 December 2006. Retrieved 29 March 2008.
Machine sang with the "junk" group, The Dirty Numbers, and has published six poetry books. In 2003 Machine married Charlotte Gavin, who has exhibited her work in Stuckist shows.


Art

Machine's work is strongly autobiographical and often draws on life experiences of sex and violence. Machine works with a limited range of mostly five colours (which Machine claims was initially due to poverty), and has cited his grandfather, who used to paint, as a major influence. Recurrent images are emaciated women, sailors and bloodshed. He has shown fighting dogs and a sailor having his throat slit . Other images are
Ute Lemper Ute Gertrud Lemper (; born 4 July 1963) is a German singer and actress. Her roles in musicals include playing Sally Bowles in the original Paris production of ''Cabaret'', for which she won the 1987 Molière Award for Best Newcomer, and Velm ...
, and Diana Dors with an axe and also with a sub-machine gun. ''My Grandfather Will Fight You'' depicts a gaunt older man with clenched fists and blood-spattered shirt, painted on two wooden boards nailed together.


Gallery

Image:Joe Machine, Diana Dors with a Machine Gun.jpg, ''Diana Dors with a Machine Gun'' Image:Joe Machine, Ute Lempe.jpg, ''Ute Lempe'' Image:Joe Machine, My Mother's Last Cigarette.jpg, ''My Mother's Last Cigarette'' Image:Joe Machine, Sailor on a Sea of Sex.jpg, ''Sailor on a Sea of Sex'' Image:Joe Machine, Sex Crime Variation 2.jpg, ''Sex Crime Variation 2'' Image:Joe Machine, Oral Sex.jpg, ''Oral Sex'' Image:Joe Machine, Two Girlies.jpg, ''Two Girlies'' Image:Joe Machine, Until the Last Dog Is Hung.jpg, ''Until the Last Dog Is Hung''


Notes and references


Further reading

* Evans, Katherine ed.(2000), "The Stuckists", Victoria Press,


External links


Joe Machine's paintings




* [http://www.stuckism.com/Videos.html#Machine Two video interviews with Joe Machine ] {{DEFAULTSORT:Machine, Joe 1973 births Living people 20th-century English painters English male painters 21st-century English painters People from Chatham, Kent English Romani people Stuckism Romani painters English contemporary artists Romani poets 20th-century English male artists 21st-century English male artists