Lehmann Maupin presents like a god i love all things, an exhibition of new paintings by British painter Billy Childish. Based in Kent, Childish’s artistic practice is wide ranging and prolific. In addition to painting, the artist moves seamlessly between poetry and prose, punk rock, blues and folk music, photography, and printmaking. Over the course of his decades-long career, he has written and published 5 novels, more than 40 volumes of confessional poetry, and recorded well over 170 LPs. Childish’s paintings are often characterized by their vivid immediacy, painted directly on warm linen canvas using a rich, earthy palette of oil paint. The artist’s subjects are drawn from both his immediate environment—the North Kent landscape and members of his family—as well as further afield, including scenes of northern California and historical photographs, often appearing other-worldly or what Childish has described as dreamscapes. like a god i love all things marks the first exhibition in 2025 at Lehmann Maupin’s temporary space, located at No.9 Cork Street in London’s Mayfair neighborhood. 

During the opening reception on January 30th, Childish will stage a poetry reading in the gallery at 7 PM. Concurrent to the exhibition, Viper's Tongue Press will publish a poetry sampler featuring a selection of Childish's poems from the early 1980s to the present, with Tangerine Press producing a signed, limited edition of the book, all hand bound with an original woodcut tipped in.