Robbie Williams has given an insight into his art-making process as he prepares to launch an exhibition showcasing his latest work in London.
The ‘Angels’ pop star has spent much of the last decade in his art studio rather than the recording booth, after claiming that he’d swapped “cocaine and strippers” for “colouring in”.
Williams’s new art is drawn on his iPad, and typically comprises blocky, colourful sketches decorated in pithy, hand-written observations. One reads, “I was mentally ill before it was cool.” Another reads, “I suggest underpants for the mind when experiencing emotional incontinence.”
In a new interview with The Sunday Times, Williams said he hasn’t “got the time and … the inclination” to train professionally as an artist. He added that he takes a fast approach to his work, explaining, “I have the idea for [the text on each art work], I knock up the thing behind it, the thing that takes 20 minutes, 25 minutes to draw, boom, I move on to the next one”.
In 2022, one of Williams’s works – made in collaboration with the interior designer Ed Godrich – sold for £40,000 at auction, and he said that he intends for the larger versions of his latest pieces to go for a similar price.
“We haven’t commercialised them yet, but I’m f***ing gonna,” he said. “I think that what you do with the big ones, you know, the ones that stand alone, they won’t be priced accessibly. They will be accessible to rich people.” The report noted that cheaper prints of Williams’s art will also be available.
Speaking in 2022, Williams said that he expected to be criticised for his move into art, and recalled that he was once one of the people who disliked when musicians veered into other forms of creativity.
“People like you being in your box,” he said. “I remember in the Nineties seeing musicians doing acting and thinking, ‘What the f*** are they doing that for?’ So I liked being in my box too.”
He continued: “I’m not looking forward to being kicked in the head. And I will be.”
Robbie Williams: Radical Honesty is on view at London’s Moco Museum for a limited time.
