Sam Collins: The man behind Rochester's Billy Childish mural
From Jeremy Corbyn to Billy Childish, Rochester artist Sam Collins tells us how his photorealistic murals have been drawn into political statements
If you didn’t know already, Rochester will be forever tied to the words and works of Charles Dickens.
Take a walk down the high street and see Eastgate House - an inspiration that ran into the author’s The Pickwick Papers novel. But you might also have noticed that the 400-year-old building is being watched over by the eyes of another Medway icon - musician, poet and artist Billy Childish.
At 25 feet long, the mural, created by Sam Collins (@sam_art_34), is unmissable in its lofty position, not least because of the slogan ‘Brexit is Childish’, daubed in red paint across the face of its muse.
“It wasn’t me, it was added after,” says Sam. “I was a bit shocked at first, with this blood-red writing over his face, but once I read it and stepped back I just loved it. It was gutting that I didn’t do it myself! What a brilliant tagline to go with it.”
Having spent much of his post-education life working in factories and care homes, the Billy Childish mural was the one to announce Sam Art 24 (as he is known online) on the street-art stage.
“That was one of my very early ones, when I discovered I could create, at size, photorealistic pieces,” he explains. “I had struggled to get into galleries or be shown somewhere, so I decided that I would up the street-art side of things.
“Where I live in Rochester, a lot of the buildings are protected and so there aren’t many spaces you can legally paint straight onto the wall.
“So I just knocked on buildings until I found an owner that would love it.”
Painted onto five boards and then screwed into the wall - meaning it can be removed if needed - the mural remains the artist’s favourite six years on.
“I have appreciated him through my parents since I was young. My family have always enjoyed him. And though I knew Billy for his music, I then discovered his paintings, which blew my mind.
“It [the mural] has been a good one and helped push me into other places.
“I owe my makeup as an artist entirely to other artists that I have loved and watched. And Billy is right up there
”
“The graffiti really helped push it again over the last few years and push it into the street-art worlds and a lot more people noticed it. Now and then, street-art bloggers have come down and photographed it and written about it.”
While Sam’s creative juices were simmering through music in his teens and early 20s, it wasn’t until a chance viewing of Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop film that he really began to explore art.
“I left school with very few qualifications. Art sort of saved my life in that way. It gave me a point. And I started to teach myself from then,” he explains.
At 27, he got an apprenticeship with former Sittingbourne artist Dean Tweedy, of Marvellous Murals. “I owe a lot to him. After working in factories, it was like a dream come true to be paid to pick up skills from someone and work out my own way of doing things,” he says.
Sam has become known for the quality of his photorealistic work, taking images of people and scaling them up - using the ‘gridding method’.
“I draw a grid on the canvas and follow each tiny square, painting one little bit at a time,” he explains. “It made me more obsessed with the detail and achieving that photorealism. It’s a continuing learning process. The larger it is, the easier it is for me. My aim is to do something on a 60-foot building this year if I can.
Arguably his most notorious piece was a 2017 mural of Jeremy Corbyn that ended up on the side of the North Nineteen pub in Islington, London.
“That really skyrocketed,” says Sam. “I did it on a canvas first and the pub spotted it and asked if I could do it on a building as well.
“I supported his [Corbyn’s] movement and would have liked him to become Prime Minister. It was never intended to be a ‘Oh, you must vote for this guy’, but I liked what he stood for and it connected with me and it drew me into politics.”
But much like his Billy Childish piece that was hijacked for a statement on Brexit, his piece on Corbyn was pictured on the front of satirical magazine Private Eye.
“That was a dream come true because I adore Private Eye. The piece is down now, of course - time passes, and he fell out of favour, but I got a lot of work off the back of it.”
While Sam is continually commissioned for personal pieces, often in bedrooms, his notoriety has led him to creating pieces for public spaces such as nightclubs, in London and even in the revamped street-food court at Maidstone’s Lockmeadow Complex.
The Rochester artist also created three works for the Museum of London’s Beasts of London exhibition back in 2020 with works such as a plague mask and rat, carousel horse and woolly mammoth taking centre stage.
But, while Sam’s successes continue to grow, the Billy Childish piece remains as the highlight - to him at least.
“I desperately want to have a new favourite piece. But nothing I do, in my heart anyway, matches it,” he explains. “I owe my makeup as an artist entirely to other artists that I have loved and watched. And Billy is right up there.”
INFO: Samart.me
