Artist, musician and writer Billy Childish is a cult figure, and one who has gained an international following, but this is the first time a public institution has brought together a major solo exhibition to encompass his extraordinary career. His prodigious range of activities can best be understood as a total work of art - one which centres on his own persona. Unknowable but Certain presents the vitality of his recent work as a culmination of over three decades’ engagement across different media.

The lower gallery features a group of Childish’s recent paintings, which have an unusual command and power. It includes self-portraits, often shown hill-walking; images of boats on the Medway, the estuary where he lives; still lifes with flowers, featuring pots made by the artist’s mother; and paintings depicting the Swiss modernist writer Robert Walser, including works based on police photographs showing the author dead in the snow. Childish’s paintings are highly expressionistic, conveying a sense of the visionary significance that he discovers in objects, places and people. They also demonstrate the deliberate rejection of the contemporary world that is a feature of all his work.