Chris Childs
An interview with the acclaimed Bristol-based animator about drawing, starting young and the physicality of animation - plus an exclusive premiere of their hypnotic new work 'Submerged Head'.
The Doldrums (2024) by Chris Childs
Chris Childs is a shining light in UK animation. Since winning a Royal Television Society award for their UWE student film My Favourite Hill (2020) they have released almost a film a year, each one a unique and special work of animation art. The way Chris’s work has developed over the course of these films has been inspiring to behold, becoming ever more unexpected and unique, with greater depth, strangeness and poetry. It’s a very particular kind of poetry, and one which is perfectly suited to the form of drawn animation which they excel at.
The physicality and unavoidability of the human body, with its pains, limitations, embarrassments and absurdities is often present, connecting Chris’s work into a certain lineage of British bodily humour in art which might also encompass James Gillray, William Hogarth, Steve Bell, The Beano, Bob Godfrey, David Shrigley and Peter Millard. But the comedic aspect of the work has become increasingly subdued, abstract and existential, and now seems folded in rather than on the surface of the films, as in the recent The Doldrums (2024) which exudes a kind of gentle sadness that is strangely beautiful and moving whilst still featuring snot creatures, maggots and a silly voice.
In this interview Chris discusses their background, influences and process, and the continued development of their practice, with an exclusive premiere of their brand new work Submerged Head. This latest piece from Chris is a slow, hypnotic meditation, marking a bold new direction in their work. In our conversation they discuss these new ideas and works and the potential of the gallery as a context for animation. Chris also tells us about a quite wonderful method of tuning into the physicality and weight of an animation as one is making it, which I feel like I am inevitably going to have to try for myself.