robyn hitchcock painting 3 Spooked
"Spooked"

Robyn Hitchcock selling paintings online, raising money for touring musicians COVID-19 relief

In addition to being a musician and songwriter, Robyn Hitchcock is also a very talented visual artist and his paintings and drawings have graced many of his records. For the first time ever, Robyn is making some of his work available for purchase to the general public, with five paintings up on eBay now. Robyn is donating 25% of the profits from this and future art auctions to the National Independent Talent Organisation, a not-for-profit group that “advocates for the survival of the live music community as the industry attempts to slowly recover from this unsettling and challenging year.”

“Like my songs, my paintings and drawings are lava streams directly from my unconscious,” Robyn writes. “Unlike in songs, what I’m painting is hard to put into words – maybe that’s why I try to paint it instead… As I have spent most my life as a touring musician, I have not had time to paint us much as I would like, so the works listed this week on eBay are quite rare.”

The unconscious, dreams, nightmares – this is the portal to what is often called surrealism. Objects, people, creatures that aren’t where you might expect them to be. Although I’m a fan of Dali, Magritte, Leonora Carrington, Dorothea Tanning and, of course, Giorgio DeChirico, I never consciously pursue surrealism, any more than I can steer my dreams or control my nightmares. But if it helps to think of me as a surrealist, please do: I’m certainly not an impressionist, or a journalist…or much of any kind of -ist, really.”

You can check out the five paintings currently on auction below, and place a bid here.

Meanwhile Robyn and his partner Emma Swift have been doing regular livestream performances via Stageit, and this week they have two: July 29 at 9 PM Easter and July 31 at 3 PM Eastern.

We also talked to Robyn about the music, movies and books that have been getting him through pandemic lockdown. Robyn also rerecorded his 1986 song “The President” with new lyrics about Donald Trump.

Robyn was also one of the many musicians to pay tribute to Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green, who passed away this past weekend.

Emma Swift has an album of Dylan covers due out August 14.

“Spooked”
robyn hitchcock painting 1 Tromsø, Kaptein
“Tromsø, Kaptein”
robyn hitchcock painting 2 End Game
“End Game”
robyn hitchcock painting 4 Green Intentions
“Green Intentions”
robyn hitchcock painting 5 Takes Two To Make 2
“Takes Two To Make 2”
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