About Billy Bleed

Billy was never trained in painting or any other form of the arts. Nor does he care for this either as he believes it will not allow for his works to be true at heart. They would never really give the viewer what it is they needed to see from his perspective.

Billy’s works are clumsy, naive, and are created with fast strokes. They are raw, unrefined and constantly in a state of change. Some view them as unresolved and frown upon this as you would say. This he agrees with, and the frowning he is ok with, because like everything in our cosmos, nothing is perfected or finished it is always changing its delivery.

On reflection each work could do with just one more stroke, but billy can’t add that final touch or at least is not allowed too. If billy did the story would be finished, the book would be put down and you would lose the anticipation of flicking to the next page.

Billy works by day as a social worker, and has done so for 14 years.

If only he could write, a book would be a splendid thing. Each time you opened to a page it would scream at you, suck you in, show you the so called rabbit hole. You’d never get past page 13. Even if you opened to page 526 you’d still find yourself on page 13 and you would not come back.

This is the reason billy paints as he feels it is easier on the mind. Billy is often referred to as the human dustman - collecting peoples throw aways.

Everyone billy works with was at one time a part of something bigger. They belonged to someone or something once upon a time.

Billy believes that they still belong and will always belong in his mind. Although, like the wind that bellows through the sails of a tail ship without that extra support and guidance they find themselves in lost lands.

As billy paints he often see’s many of his clients that he has worked with. Billy has worked on the streets, detox’s, rehabs, community health centres, hospitals and the prison system. 

Individuals he has built relationships with include murderers, armed robbers, drug users, petty criminals, drug dealers, prostitutes, the homeless, children, old folk, and individuals with a disability whether physical or intellectual.

The paintings your see each have the energy and stories of these people the world has forgot embedded in them. you can’t erase it, you can’t see it, but it is there and will always be there. Billy has collected it in his butterfly net.

With this innocence billy assists in rebuilding those fractured lives in an artistic form. Billy tries to make sense of his world and that of others.

That is why billy is who he is.