Richard Billingham

*1970 in Birmingham (UK); lives and works in Stourbridge (UK)
One of the highlights of the 90s British art scene was the work of photographer Richard Billingham, whose brutally honest shots of his family, collected in the book «Ray's A Laugh,» depict with extraordinary immediacy near-grotesque domestic life.

As an undergraduate at the University of Sunderland, Richard Billingham made a dark and moving series of color photographs of his parents and younger brother, and their life in a housing project outside Birmingham, England, as studies for paintings. These large, dramatic pictures—published in book form as Ray's a Laugh—are a powerful testament to the impact of his father's chronic alcoholism and unemployment on his immediate family. Billingham began photographing his family as reference material for paintings. the subjects are his father ray, his obese and tattoed mother liz, his unruly younger brother jason, the dog's another character: caught flash-pupilled with the cat beside the fridge with the brown dribbles all down it; or thoroughly chewing its behind on the sofa.
he took so many shots that the family stopped noticing and the result is that they are portraited without artefice.
his photos were first shown in the barbican art gallery, london in 1994 entitled 'who's looking at the family'. two years later these selected images feature in billingham's book, 'ray's a laugh', published by scalo, 1996.
after the overnight fame, he stopped taking still pictures,
but moved on to hi-8 video footage, resulting in the 47minute TV film called 'fishtank', commissioned by artangel.