How Robbie Williams found peace in painting: 'You are just in the moment'

 

Picture Sotheby's

 

A new collection of paintings by the music star and his creative partner Ed Godrich is currently on show in Dubai

 

In Ed Godrich, music star Robbie Williams has found his creative doppelganger. The duo met when Godrich, in his former guise as an interior designer, was enlisted to decorate Williams’s London home more than a decade ago. Once the project was completed, they remained close friends and, united by a shared love of art, music and all things 1980s, eventually joined creative forces. Williams talks of their shared sensibilities and similar experiences as young men in their early twenties, but also about their mutual appreciation for “the overpowering nature of what music means to you and what images mean to you, and the indelible, beautiful stain they leave on your soul”.

 

The fruits of this partnership were unveiled in May, when Williams and Goodrich presented their first collection of artworks in London, in a solo exhibition organised by Sotheby’s. Their second body of work made its debut at Sotheby’s Dubai on November 30, in an exhibition titled Black and White Paintings II, which is on until December 16 and features 15 new works in the duo’s distinct style.

 

Picture Sotheby's

 

They are abstract, multilayered and monochromatic, dominated by white swirls that evolve into animal-like faces before tapering off into more ambiguous shapes and forms. Every time you look, there is something new to see. “They are childlike paintings for naughty grown-ups,” Williams quips. “I think you can feel where we’ve been and you can feel what it’s meant to us and you can feel that there is a humour in the darkness. If you can relate to these paintings, you can relate to us.”

 

While the 14 works unveiled in London all had female names that were particularly common in the UK in the 1980s, this second collection has been granted with male monikers from the same era. There’s Alan, Brian, Clive, Mike, Simon, Steve, and even Trevor. Collectively, they are an expression of nostalgia — singularly spontaneous yet deeply rooted in a very specific time.

 

“The one thing you absolutely cannot deny is it is a super authentic process for them,” says Hugo Cobb, contemporary art specialist at Sotheby’s. “It’s a very real thing, something that is hugely personal and important to these artists. “These are not carefully planned art works. The traditional way to make a painting would be to create a sketch or a study and build it up from there. This is coming from a completely different direction. They work listening to music; it is very fluid and very instinctive, and the canvases are built up like that.”

 

For Williams, it was Exit through the Gift Shop, a 2010 documentary directed by Banksy, that first planted the idea that perhaps art wasn’t the exclusive reserve of a gifted few. It was an alternative medium that offered an opportunity for him to flex new creative muscles. But even in this parallel realm — far from recording studios, record-breaking albums and world tours — music remains the driving force.

 

His own early interest in art was fuelled by the images he saw on album covers, from the graphics on electro albums and the image of a plane on the Beastie Boys’s Licensed to Ill, to Guns & Roses’ Appetite for Destruction and Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles. Rave culture, acid house and early hip-hop are among the many things that Williams and Godrich have bonded over, and music is integral to their creative process.

 

“Music is being listened to very very loudly when the work is happening,” Godrich says. “The paintings reflect the music we listen to — normally electronic dance music, which is why they have a lot of movement in them. I think if we listened to something quieter and slower, the paintings would be very different, so it’s a very important part of the process.”

 

It sounds like quite an intense set-up, but both agree there is something deeply meditative about the process. “You don’t struggle with intrusive thoughts,” Williams says. “You don’t struggle with your own lack of self-worth. You are just in the moment.

 

“So it is meditative. There are these primal beats that are being created by modern technology, but while that is happening around us, it facilitates something very human.”

 

Williams is apparently in charge of “the stop moment” — of deciding when the painting is done. Their mutual trust is implicit, they say. That they are in sync is obvious even as they talk. Williams is in a hotel room in Germany and Godrich is in his studio in the UK, but neither distance nor the technological barriers of Zoom stop them from finishing each others’ sentences or looking to each other for confirmation as they make a particular point.

 

More than two and a half decades since he embarked on his solo career, Williams has come to the realisation that there is value in being part of a team.

 

“It’s more fun being in Take That because it’s a shared experience,” he says with a wry grin.

 

“But there is also the ego that wants to take charge of every single option available to you, which is why I sit in my solo career. Nobody truly knows what it is to be a Robbie Williams. I don’t get to turn to anybody, apart from the mirror, and say this is [messed] up or this is exciting.

 

“But I get to share this. With this, we do get to look at each other when we think something we’ve created is exciting and to share that.

 

“It’s like when you write a song and you get excited because it’s something that the 14-year-old you would love. It’s the same with paintings. When you’ve done something or created something that you would buy, or put up in your own house, there is something very satisfying about that moment.”

 

The work shown so far “is just the first album”, Williams maintains. He’s hoping for many more, perhaps even a greatest hits compilation or two. “I see us building hotels and doing the interiors of those hotels. I’ve got big plans for this.

 

“My feeling for this is not monetary, although I will welcome anything we make from it. My feeling for this is: Where can we take it? How big can it be? It’s the satisfaction of doing something creative in the name of creativity. It’s unleashing the mind and seeing what is up there and what we, and I, are capable of.”

 

Williams says he has avoided reading any reviews of the works, but is clearly conscious that judgment of his artistic capabilities may be coloured by his not inconsiderable celebrity.

 

“I was scared about metaphorically having my head kicked in,” he says of the duo’s London debut. “That jump from music into the art world isn’t necessarily one that is encouraged by the people that view it. “We had to be very careful about what the first glimpse of this partnership was. Because one bad stone could sink the ship. But the things that have been seen now are a small arm of what we are going to achieve,” he adds.

 

It has taken Williams and Godrich five years to reach this point, from their first attempt in the garage of Williams’s Los Angeles home, where, having acquired “more paint than you’ve ever seen before”, the pair began the laborious process of developing a style that felt authentic. “We were stood there, in the garage, looking at the paints and looking at our backboards and going: ‘Okay, now what?” Williams recalls. “And then, through a series of happy mistakes and relentless beard scratching and puzzlement and confusion and self hatred, but mainly through the endeavour of not giving up, we have reached a process.

 

“It’s sort of like ‘Carry on Painting’.”

 

Black and White Paintings II is on at Sotheby's Dubai until December 16

 

 

https://www.thenationalnews.com/lifestyle/l...-in-the-moment/

Edited November 30, 20222 yr by Sydney11

I love their paintings and would be proud (and very rich ;) ) to have one hanging on the wall

I wonder if they are bought?

I wonder if they are bought?

 

I don't know -nobody mentioned prices :unsure:

 

 

 

Credit: @__amrita__singh__

 

Robbie has remarkably lost weight. He is almost as thin as 2001

I don't know -nobody mentioned prices :unsure:

 

Credit: @__amrita__singh__

 

 

This series are half the size of the ones shown in London , must have taken ages to paint each one by hand :unsure:

Yep, he is very thin like in 2001...

I hope everything's fine now.

 

@1598656887058272256

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

edgodrich

This one time when we ended up chatting art on the telebox….. @sothebys @robbiewilliams #art #sothebys

How Robbie Williams found peace in painting, fashion on the Nile and Fendi's family affair

 

'The UAE is a global hub – whether for fashion, sports, art, music, literature or design'

The UAE has been a hive of activity in recent weeks. From Louis Vuitton presenting a cruise trunk show at Expo Village, Prada bringing a Damien Hirst installation to the Dubai International Financial Centre and 193,000 people taking over Sheikh Zayed Road as part of the annual Dubai Fitness Challenge, to the spectacle of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, not to mention countless other high-profile events, it has been difficult to keep up.

 

It has been a sometimes exhausting, but always heartening reminder of the fact that the UAE is truly a global hub – whether for fashion, sports, art, music, literature or design. As a journalist, this creates opportunities I could never have dreamed of.

 

This point struck home poignantly this week as I sat in my iamspamspamamiinterviewing Robbie Williams via Zoom. While I am not overly prone to fan-girling, I can just imagine what my 14-year-old Take That-loving self would have had to say about that.

 

In further evidence of the UAE’s prominence, Williams and long-time friend Ed Godrich, who presented their first collection of paintings as a creative duo earlier this year, decided to unveil their second body of work in Dubai. I speak to them about their distinct style, which is shaped by a joint love of music, rave culture and the 1980s. There is a fitting symmetry to the fact that Williams rang in the New Year in Dubai, with a performance at Atlantis, The Palm, and as 2022 draws to a close, found himself back in the UAE showcasing a whole new skill set. He is one of the country’s many fans, it transpires.

 

“I like Dubai,” he says. “I want to do a lot of work there. I want to be an ambassador of entertainment to Dubai, because I can see what it is and what it can become.”

 

Also in town in recent weeks was Serge Brunschwig, chief executive of Fendi. In a sign of the Italian label’s bolstered commitment to the region, Fendi has expanded its flagship boutique in The Dubai Mall, doubling it in size. We speak to the LVMH veteran about the evolution of the fashion house.

 

While exploring the pinnacle of luxury, this issue also celebrates grassroots design – lesser-known labels that are pioneering fresh ideas in the region. Sarah Maisey rounds up some of the concepts that are piquing her interest.

 

It is 20 years since Nada Debs launched her eponymous brand, but she is a prime example of grassroots design – her furniture and home accessories were born out of her quest for identity as she returned to Lebanon after 40 years as an expat.

 

She tells us that two decades later, she finally feels like she has proved herself and, with her son having recently joined the business, is brimming with a new sense of freedom. We can’t wait to see what comes next.

 

 

How Robbie Williams found solace in art. By Selina Denman

 

In Ed Godrich, music star Robbie Williams has found his creative doppelganger.

 

The duo met when Godrich, in his former guise as an interior designer, was enlisted to decorate Williams’s London home more than a decade ago. Once the project was completed, they remained close friends and, united by a shared love of art, music and all things 1980s, eventually joined creative forces. Williams talks of their shared sensibilities and similar experiences as young men in their early twenties, but also about their mutual appreciation for “the overpowering nature of what music means to you and what images mean to you, and the indelible, beautiful stain they leave on your soul”.

 

The fruits of this partnership were unveiled in May, when Williams and Goodrich presented their first collection of artworks in London, in a solo exhibition organised by Sotheby’s. Their second body of work made its debut at Sotheby’s Dubai on November 30, in an exhibition titled Black and White Paintings II, which is on until December 16 and features 15 new works in the duo’s distinct style. They are abstract, multilayered and monochromatic, dominated by white swirls that evolve into animal-like faces before tapering off into more ambiguous shapes and forms. Every time you look, there is something new to see.

 

“They are childlike paintings for naughty grown-ups,” Williams quips. “I think you can feel where we’ve been and you can feel what it’s meant to us and you can feel that there is a humour in the darkness. If you can relate to these paintings, you can relate to us.” While the 14 works unveiled in London all had female names that were particularly common in the UK in the 1980s, this second collection has been granted with male monikers from the same era. There’s Alan, Brian, Clive, Mike, Simon, Steve, and even Trevor. Collectively, they are an expression of nostalgia – singularly spontaneous yet deeply rooted in a very specific time.

 

“The one thing you absolutely cannot deny is it is a super authentic process for them,” says Hugo Cobb, contemporary art specialist at Sotheby’s. “It’s a very real thing, something that is hugely personal and important to these artists. “These are not carefully planned art works. The traditional way to make a painting would be to create a sketch or a study and build it up from there. This is coming from a completely different direction. They work listening to music; it is very fluid and very instinctive, and the canvases are built up like that.”

 

For Williams, it was Exit through the Gift Shop, a 2010 documentary directed by Banksy, that first planted the idea that perhaps art wasn’t the exclusive reserve of a gifted few. It was an alternative medium that offered an opportunity for him to flex new creative muscles. But even in this parallel realm – far from recording studios, record-breaking albums and world tours – music remains the driving force. His own early interest in art was fuelled by the images he saw on album covers, from the graphics on electro albums and the image of a plane on the Beastie Boys’s Licensed to Ill, to Guns & Roses’ Appetite for Destruction and Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles. Rave culture, acid house and early hip-hop are

“Music is being listened to very very loudly when the work is happening,” Godrich says. “The paintings reflect the music we listen to – normally electronic dance music, which is why they have a lot of movement in them. I think if we listened to something quieter and slower, the paintings would be very different, so it’s a very important part of the process.”

 

It sounds like quite an intense set-up, but both agree there is something deeply meditative about the process. “You don’t struggle with intrusive thoughts,” Williams says. “You don’t struggle with your own lack of self-worth. You are just in the moment. “So it is meditative. There are these primal beats that are being created by modern technology, but while that is happening around us, it facilitates something very human.”

 

Williams is apparently in charge of “the stop moment” – of deciding when the painting is done. Their mutual trust is implicit, they say. That they are in sync is obvious even as they talk. Williams is in a hotel room in Germany and Godrich is in his studio in the UK, but neither distance nor the technological barriers of Zoom stop them from finishing each others’ sentences or looking to each other for confirmation as they make a particular point.

 

More than two and a half decades since he embarked on his solo career, Williams has come to the realisation that there is value in being part of a team. “It’s more fun being in Take That because it’s a shared experience,” he says with a wry grin. “But there is also the ego that wants to take charge of every single option available to you, which is why I sit in my solo career. Nobody truly knows what it is to be a Robbie Williams. I don’t get to turn to anybody, apart from the mirror, and say this is [messed] up or this is exciting.

 

Black and White Paintings II at Sotheby's Dubai

 

“But I get to share this. With this, we do get to look at each other when we think something we’ve created is exciting and to share that. “It’s like when you write a song and you get excited because it’s something that the 14-year-old you would love. It’s the same with paintings. When you’ve done something or created something that you would buy, or put up in your own house, there is something very satisfying about that moment.”

 

The work shown so far “is just the first album”, Williams maintains. He’s hoping for many more, perhaps even a greatest hits compilation or two. “I see us building hotels and doing the interiors of those hotels. I’ve got big plans for this. “My feeling for this is not monetary, although I will welcome anything we make from it. My feeling for this is: Where can we take it? How big can it be? It’s the satisfaction of doing something creative in the name of creativity. It’s unleashing the mind and seeing what is up there and what we, and I, are capable of.”

 

Williams says he has avoided reading any reviews of the works, but is clearly conscious that judgment of his artistic capabilities may be coloured by his not inconsiderable celebrity. “I was scared about metaphorically having my head kicked in,” he says of the duo’s London debut. “That jump from music into the art world isn’t necessarily one that is encouraged by the people that view it.

 

“We had to be very careful about what the first glimpse of this partnership was. Because one bad stone could sink the ship. But the things that have been seen now are a small arm of what we are going to achieve,” he adds. It has taken Williams and Godrich five years to reach this point, from their first attempt in the garage of Williams’s Los Angeles home, where, having acquired “more paint than you’ve ever seen before”, the pair began the laborious process of developing a style that felt authentic.

 

“We were stood there, in the garage, looking at the paints and looking at our backboards and going: ‘Okay, now what?” Williams recalls. “And then, through a series of happy mistakes and relentless beard scratching and puzzlement and confusion and self hatred, but mainly through the endeavour of not giving up, we have reached a process.

 

“It’s sort of like ‘Carry on Painting’.”

 

https://www.thenationalnews.com/lifestyle/l...on-on-the-nile/

Edited December 8, 20222 yr by Sydney11

This is an interesting read as Serge Brunschwig is related to the person who sold the Geneva ground to Rob. He has friends with the Givenchy's (the finacial brother of the fashion Givenchy) and a lot of other names where you say 'oh' when you google them.

He has definitely found people who can sponsor what he is doing aaside of music.

This is an interesting read as Serge Brunschwig is related to the person who sold the Geneva ground to Rob. He has friends with the Givenchy's (the finacial brother of the fashion Givenchy) and a lot of other names where you say 'oh' when you google them.

He has definitely found people who can sponsor what he is doing aaside of music.

 

 

I think it is only as an 'aside' Elisabeth & something he will most likely move on from. I am sure they will be purchased maybe by someone who would like to do business with him in the future, he keeps talking about opening up a hotel in Dubai, I have no doubt it will happen. Rpb is turning out to be quite the entrepeneur , a trait that you often see in successful people who left school at an early age but had a great head for business & seeing opportunities.

Edited December 8, 20222 yr by Sydney11

I think that in his earlier years, even during his imperial phase it was only music a musician did. There had been some like Snoop Dog who already diversified into fashion, but most did music and became rich by the contracts like the EMI one and album sales.

This has entirely changed.

Rihanna is making more money with fashion than any music since a long time, Kayne West and so many more. Fashion, Make up, and alcohol is the business trend, restaurants then and I see most of those being quite successful. You need to have a certain level of fame though. I think that during Covid Rob had time to make a clear planning: Can i keep my lifestyle in the future: The answer is yes but only if he tours and this is straining. So he networked. I saw the people mostly on the Ayda pictures and wondered about the connection as some had nothing to do with music but business.

 

If he will be successful next year will be one of the best years of his career. So he will start the other businesses which feed the family on high standard right then or afterwards I believe.

Will be very interesting.

I think that in his earlier years, even during his imperial phase it was only music a musician did. There had been some like Snoop Dog who already diversified into fashion, but most did music and became rich by the contracts like the EMI one and album sales.

This has entirely changed.

Rihanna is making more money with fashion than any music since a long time, Kayne West and so many more. Fashion, Make up, and alcohol is the business trend, restaurants then and I see most of those being quite successful. You need to have a certain level of fame though. I think that during Covid Rob had time to make a clear planning: Can i keep my lifestyle in the future: The answer is yes but only if he tours and this is straining. So he networked. I saw the people mostly on the Ayda pictures and wondered about the connection as some had nothing to do with music but business.

 

If he will be successful next year will be one of the best years of his career. So he will start the other businesses which feed the family on high standard right then or afterwards I believe.

Will be very interesting.

 

 

 

Yes it is interesting ^ does indeed look like he was networking, he definitely has a lot of plans in mind. I do think the 2023 tour is too long , I hope his body keeps up with his intentions , I know he will do everything he can to get through but it must be tough

 

 

Gosh ! , I used to love Kayne West ( owner of his first three albums ) until he went off the rails -_-

Edited December 9, 20222 yr by Sydney11

And there will be the movie promotion.

Do we already know when the Eurovision Song contest will be as he wanted to sing there?

And there is Latam..in several interviews he said he would go there too....maybe 2024.

 

Does anyone know (Alex :-) ) how many people ill watch now with the new shows added?

I was watching an Elvis film online today that I used to have on Video back in the day -"Elvis -that's the way it is" - a brilliant documentary from 1970 about when he went to Las Vegas to perform -he looked gorgeous, was mesmerising on stage and sounded amazing. :wub:

 

Then I looked for more to watch and started on "Elvis live tours" filmed only two years later in 1972 -the difference was startling -he looked over weight, puffy, pale, ill. The narrator filmed at the time said as part of this tour Elvis performed 16 consecutive dates at 16 different cities in the US. We now know with hindsight how those tours affected him and his health and mental wellbeing and I was really taken aback and saddened by the change in him. Especially considering -he was only 37 years old at the time.

 

Rob's latest tour schedule and his work schedule does seem arduous for someone that finds it as tricky as he does. I do wonder about parallels to the 2006 Close Encounters tour - the dates are further apart this time and seemed to have been thought out - but balanced against that -he is 16 years older -allbeit much fitter than he was then.

The latest photos show him slimmer than I think I've ever seen him and the photo where he was standing next to Ed Goodrich at the art exhibition in Dubai -I actually thought he looked quite fragile. Maybe it was just a bad picture.

 

I hope he doesn't feel on a hamster wheel to maintain his family's lifestyle and could cut back if he felt he needed to.

 

I think he is in control and really enjoyed the UK leg of the tour that was such a triumph - but watching the Elvis documentary today - it did ring little bells in my head.

 

You are for sure right with what you say, Laura. I would also not think tat what he is doing this and even more next year is healthy considering what tours can do to people, especially those with the past of Rob, physical past and mental past.

What I think is more what I believe he has done:

He was networking, he recognizes chances especially with the way American's do busines by spreading out. Rihanna is a billionaire but did not have a hit song for many years. Then the concept has to be brought to life so either you invest your on money, or you are on top of the game and everyone wants to invest in you like Adele or Ed, or you need to have the investors convinced.

He showed that the brand RW is still a pull several times, maybe not as much as in the past, though live shows sell. So I assume they offered deals which include doing the tour while the movie and the documentary will come out or in preparation.

The financial guys do not have interest in health. He will also have considered that this is his last chance to also get America on his side (with the movie) where huge money is, and invests in the future when music might not feed the family anymore.

For people with Rob's background he has achieved a lot. Many sources say that his fortune is around 350 million. But he fears he can lose this. He has quite an expensive lifestyle and wants to keep it for his children. He has also a lot of people around he simply supports and feeds. So he gives it a chance.

This is at least what I think listening to some of the podcasts he did during covid. The fear to lose it all is huge in him, the feel of responsibility and in addition work might be his new obsession.

I hope he has people who look after him.

2006 he had his managers, Jonny and no one stopped him in time despite they love him. The money was too good.

Now he has Ayda and I think she will also put in breaks.

At least this time all seems well thought through.

. But he fears he can lose this.

Yes I think that fear is real for him -although fortunately he does know the value of and value in family

 

 

 

2006 he had his managers, Jonny and no one stopped him in time despite they love him. The money was too good.

 

 

Quite recently I saw a video of him that I had forgotten about where he said on 2006 he had made up his mind that he wasn't going to do the Close Encounters tour, that he went round to see Jonny and JW was so excited by the tour that RW didn't want to let him down and went ahead with it anyway. I think he does have a very strong work ethic and would move heaven and earth to fulfil a contract.

It's Not Coming Home & Robbie Williams preview

Seaman Says

 

England's World Cup is over and David & Lynsey react to the teams performance against France and discuss where they go from here.

The pair discuss another poor refereeing performance in Qatar, the future of boss Gareth Southgate and whether England can go into another World Cup with Harry Kane.

 

Plus, there's a preview of our chat with music icon Robbie Williams who shares what happened when he performed for the England squad in Qatar.

 

Subscribe to our Seaman Says YouTube channel to watch our interviews with stars such as Aaron Ramsdale & Joe Hart as well as legends of the game including Paul Gascoigne, Gary Lineker and Ian Wright.

 

Seaman Says is a Listening Dog Media production.

 

 

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/its-n...i=1000589900697

 

Edited December 13, 20222 yr by Sydney11

The Official Charts Christmas Gift Guide 2022: Christmas gift ideas for music lovers

 

 

 

 

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/t...-lovers__38047/

Edited December 13, 20222 yr by Sydney11