Take a comedian and his somewhat unwilling parent, send them on a roadtrip, throw the pair in amusing situations, and you have a winning TV format. Unless you are Joe Lycett.
Lycett and his mum, Helen Lycett, decided against a sheep-herding, cheerleading-filled travel documentary series, and announced instead their second collaborative exhibition, aptly named Lycett and Mummy.
The comic and presenter, in part famed for his hilarious stunts and takedown of Liz Truss in the first Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, is not new to the art world, and neither is his mum.
When Helen retired from graphic design in 2014, she took up watercolour painting, which had always fascinated her, and Joe soon followed. “Some of the graphic design work involved illustrative things, but generally, it was typography and packaging design [and] you don’t have the freedom because you’re working to a brief,” said Helen.
As a child, Joe would draw cartoons and comic strips, so always had an artistic “flair”, according to his mum, but he started painting almost a decade ago because he wanted a creative outlet besides writing jokes.
Before long, his painting merged with his comedy. “They didn’t look anything like the person or they were sort of offensively bad to the person who I was trying to paint, and that started to become funny to me and so they slowly became part of the standup.”
Though Joe and Helen are sharing an exhibition and have collaborated on some of the artworks, their styles differ hugely. Helen opts for watercolour portraits and paintings of flowers, while Joe prefers colourful and exuberant acrylic paintings, sometimes – unintentionally – “wandering into caricature”.
“I’m going for more of the concept rather than the image. A lot of the time I’m just thinking, what would be a striking object or animal or whatever … what’s a fun thing to paint,” said Joe, “and also appreciating the limits of my ability.”
Helen disagrees: “I think Joe has an amazing ability to capture somebody’s characteristics very quickly.”
In 2019, mother and son hosted their first joint exhibition at Norton & Sons on Savile Row, which is owned by Joe’s former colleague, the Great British Sewing Bee judge Patrick Grant.
A bust called Chris, which Joe says he made out of clay and a Pringles can while drunk, was displayed in the 2018 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and this year the academy featured one of his paintings in which he depicts himself with the sports presenter Gary Lineker.
The exhibition of original paintings, collaborations, prints and sculptures, with most available to purchase, is at They Made This, a family-run modern art print shop in Covent Garden, and runs from 22 September to 1 October.
Art being accessible, to buy and to create, is important to the Lycetts. Entry to the exhibition is free, some of the money raised will go to charity and, in partnership with the screen-printing studio Private Press, there will be several free screen-printing workshops.
Joe Lycett’s portrait of Harry Styles, which he sold to the singer for £6 and a peanut butter KitKat Chunky, will also be on show. “It’s the final chance to see it before it goes into his, probably into his bin,” said Joe.
