Billy Childish: Unknowable but Certain, ICA

Billy Childish claims to think only in pictures. But since writing forms as big a part of his creative output as painting, that can’t be quite true. In fact, he’s written a number of autobiographical novels as well as collections of poetry. What’s more, he’s a hugely prolific musician, so I’m sure he means only that he feels a little more comfortable expressing himself through imagery rather than abstract concepts – though obviously, being human, he must do that as well.

Alongside these many activities, Childish also co-founded the Stuckists, that rather silly anti-conceptual art movement whose manifesto proclaimed that - instead of, say, “exploring ideas about death” by sticking a shark in formaldehyde - all artists must paint, and paint figuratively, too. They sought a return to sincerity in art, though the work itself was largely cack-handed. The Stuckists, though not Childish - he fell out with his less talented co-founder Charles Thomson back in 2001 – used to stage demonstrations outside Tate Britain dressed in clown outfits to protest against the Turner Prize.

So just what is Childish doing at the ICA, the ailing home of conceptual art? They’ve given him his own exhibition, and it’s showing not only his most recent paintings, but lots of archive material upstairs, relating to his many records, poems, novels and film work. Perhaps, after decades of being of minor cultural interest – honouring the tradition of the "outsider" artist - he is finally getting some establishment recognition. Or perhaps, more cynically, the troubled ICA needs to get its attendance figures up pretty sharpish, so who better than this semi-underground, cult figure to help them do it - one whose musical admirers have included Kurt Cobain and The White Stripes? (Indulged as the outsider artist of choice, one can almost see him as a naïf Henri Rousseau figure; and you can’t help but feel he plays up to this to a certain extent. He insists, for instance, on painting only on Sundays, as if he’s the quintessential Sunday Painter.)

In the main gallery you’ll find his paintings: angsty self-portraits, a still life of irises, a sad industrial landscape depicting somewhere in Rochester, Kent. All are more than competently painted, with agitated expressionistic gestures in cold, dissonant colours. There’s one of him wearing his French artist’s beret – very Rousseau – and canary-yellow hill-walking outfit (main picture) and you might say that he’s no Munch, the artist whom Childish most resembles here; but then again, Munch hardly lived up to being Munch himself, apart from two or three of his best paintings.

There’s more fun upstairs, where you can listen to some of Childish’s crossover punk/ blues records, the best of which would easily outstrip The White Stripes. And you can also watch some of the grainy, black-and-white music videos he made back in the days of the The Buff Medways and Thee Headcoats et al. With his handlebar moustache, favoured outfit of long johns and somewhat pasty, undernourished face, he engagingly resembles a cross between an Edwardian strongman and a hill-billy outlaw.

And what of Childish the poet? I recall hearing him read one of his poems on Radio 4’s Midweek once. It was a poem about the birth of his first child and it was extremely moving, skin-prickling stuff. But until he was thanked at the end, I had no idea it was Childish, and for a moment I wondered if I should like it as much as I did. Then I quickly got over myself – whatever he says, he’s a natural-born writer. I imagine that’s the reaction Childish often gets – often indulged and perhaps a little patronised, too. But I shouldn’t imagine he cares much.

• Billy Childish: Unknowable but Certain is at the ICA until 18 April