Robbie Williams
(Picture: Getty)Rock star Robbie Williams is showing off his artistic side with his first ever public exhibition of paintings.
The singer, who paints in partnership with his interior designer friend Ed Godrich, is returning to Sotheby’s for the show a month after the auction house sold two works by Banksy from his extensive art collection for £7.7 million.
The two men are also curating a show by artists who inspired them, from Damien Hirst to Grayson Perry, before those works go under the hammer at the auction house. The sale will also include one of their paintings which is expected to fetch £20,000.
Williams said: “Art is really whatever you want it to be. Just like music it has the ability to soothe and provide company when you’re lonely. Art and music have punctuated my ups and downs, but more importantly they both have the power to change how I feel in a moment.”
The pair, who have been painting together for five years after bonding over a love of Outsider Art, describe their partnership as being built on “friendship, communication, respect and trust” and Williams, who got his big break in Take That, likened it to being in “a band”.
He said: “Ed’s and my outlook on life and sensibilities are eerily similar. In music terms, Ed plays the piano, while I write the melodies and the words. To continue the metaphor, we also write songs separately and bring them together. We’re in a band.”
The pair also acknowledge their debt to 1990’s rave culture, with Godrich saying the music they listen to while painting influences what ends up on the canvas.
He said: “Our paintings take on the rhythm of whatever is playing - and that’s usually electronic music. Everyone will see something different in each picture, whether that’s the influence of the music playing at the time, or something else. Perception is key and while there is joy in them, there are also some darker undercurrents too.”
Williams said his introduction to art came via Peter Blake’s cover for the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band but he only started collecting when the success of his huge hit Angels gave him “the financial capacity” to do it.
