Oliver Tomlinson is the best artist you’ve never heard of. From his crypt in the heart of deepest, darkest Cadburyland, he rises at dawn and stirs the muse with a combination of hardcore pornography and thrash metal until he’s sufficiently aroused to face whatever the day throws at him.
Citing his primary influences as “The Bible, The Bible and The Bible” his refusal to compromise in a world where Peaches Geldof and Jimmy Carr are tolerated has helped him achieve the dizzy heights of obscurity he enjoys. Not that he would have it otherwise, knowing that when you stick your head up above the parapet, that’s when the monkey’s start throwing shit.
Those paying attention will detect more than a whiff of Edward Gorey and Jan Svankmajer about his work, but for me he’s the modern-day equivalent of George Grosz and Otto Dix, fingering the diseased entrails of our culture and holding up the greasy dregs as irrefutable proof of… something. Sadly not represented amongst this selection is his painting of Adolf Hitler riding a chicken, which was purchased at a gallery show and now resides on a wall somewhere in England.
More recently inclined towards musical expression, the pen or brush is never far from his hand and we can hope for more of his singular visions in the future.
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In our culturally-bloated times where the search for ‘meaning’ (in the shallowest sense of the word) is only utilised to justify the ultimate meaningless of many people’s lives, it’s refreshing to know that Tomlinson is an artist who defies you to find a meaning to his work. It’s like trying to fingerprint a hedgehog: difficult and ultimately pointless. Even when offering influences to him face-to-face you may come up against nothing more than towering silence… the greatest artist alive in this country today. I raise a can of Special Brew to his first (and perhaps last?) nudge into the web.