Biography of Chris Hipkiss by Romy Nath, writer and family friend.

For another view of Hipkiss and more about his inspirations, please read the transcript of Colin Rhodes’ excellent presentation, which was based on extensive personal interviews with the artist. Robert Hickey, then a student at the NY Folk Art Institute, also offered his own interesting perspective of the artist which can be found here.


Chris Hipkiss (né Payen) was born into a successful working-class family in 1964. The youngest of three, he and his family lived in the crowded suburban landscape of Uxbridge, West London, though weekends were usually spent on one of a series of boats moored on the Thames upstream from the city. It was during these times spent in the country that Hipkiss first fostered his interest and love of nature, not only observing the birds and the plants through the seasons, but studying them, learning latin names and reading up on his finds in his spare time at home.

Other than this somewhat unusual behaviour in a boy so young, Hipkiss enjoyed a normal childhood, taking pleasure in his time at the local Catholic and Grammar schools and at home, and never at a loss for things to do. His habit of drawing repeated motifs did start young, however; at the age of two, he covered a pillow-case with ‘spiders’ rendered in black biro. Unsurprisingly, his favourite place in school was the art room.

Despite showing academic promise and gaining good basic qualifications, he left school at age 16 to become an apprentice model-maker at his father’s joinery and pattern-making company. Within a few years, he was producing wooden and plastic prototypes for (amongst others) tool companies such as Black&Decker. Despite the utilisation of some his innate skills, such as visualisation and attention to detail, Hipkiss found the need for technical precision a little tiresome; however, as the trade faded with the rise of computer-aided technology, the company shifted to specialise in more mainstream joinery, such as staircase manufacture. Hipkiss was not happy as a joiner, but became a specialist in the making of handrail turns, which relies upon visual judgement rather than a ruler; finding enjoyment in this craft, he occasionally takes on such work to this day.

In the meantime, he had begun to express his artistic talents in his free time on leaving school. Showing an early preference for monochrome, he first illustrated a hand-written book at the age of sixteen - a story (by himself) concerning an idyllic, though by no means stereotypical, fantasy land. Having, for a number of years, chosen the company of several female friends and been influenced by their intellect and ideas, he also became vegetarian and started to develop his own keen interest in current affairs at this time. His drawings consisted mostly of relatively small doodles, often featuring androgynous figures and very often carrying an overt political message. He enjoyed visits to The Tate for the general interest and range of artists, but the work of the likes of Constable or Turner did little to impress him; instead he developed an admiration for the non-classical, detailed landscapes of artists such as Bosch, Pieter Brueghel, Hogarth and Lowry.

At the age of eighteen, Hipkiss met his wife-to-be, Alpha (née Meryl Abbott - and also eighteen), at the local university where she was studying Statistics and Computer Science. Instantly drawn to one another beforehand, the two happened to be introduced because Alpha was also involved with animal rights politics. In the first days of their relationship, Hipkiss began his first large, rolled picture, which he would work on whilst drinking with Alpha and friends in the university bar. After just over three years - and contrary to all previous anti-matrimony feeling on both parts - they married in a civil ceremony, dressed in black and with just two witnesses; upon this, Hipkiss adopted his wife’s adopted surname of Mason.

In 1989, the couple moved to Doddington, a small village in Kent (south-east of London) close to where Alpha grew up, with the intention that Hipkiss should leave his job and devote most of his time to his art. Alpha worked in London as a computer consultant while Chris looked after the house, got to know the countryside and formed a local environmental group; his art, however, suffered from the lack of domestic company for a large part of the day. It was his first indication that - unlike many artists - his urge to create was thwarted by solitude. In an odd instance of serendipity, two years after the move, Alpha was prevented from pursuing her career due to constant malaise in the office environment; this has later turned out to have been caused by an allergy to certain chemical products, but at the time, it merely meant that the couple were forced to seek other ways to support themselves and that the long hours of daily separation ceased.

The years that followed were spent in paradoxical contentment. Working locally and often together - picking fruit, taxi and delivery driving and conducting various projects from home - income was a perennial problem, but Hipkiss at last found the impetus to begin taking his drawing seriously. It was during a trip to Paris that he hit upon the style that would develop into that of his current work; whilst the detail had been there before, Hipkiss remembers it as a breakthrough in terms of perspective and his own interpretation of landscape. On his return home, he drew three larger pictures in the same vein before embarking on his first really large work, Doddington, measuring 30”x17’. In 1992, via Madeleine Ireland, an artist friend of a friend in the village, Hipkiss found his way to his first London show - a two-person exhibition in a small gallery in Bayswater.

Around the same time, armed with a few copies of a brochure - home-made by Alpha - the pair went to a contemporary art fair in London in the hope of meeting useful contacts. Fortuitously, they found themselves talking with John Maizels, editor of the bi-annual magazine, Raw Vision, who immediately declared an interest in producing an article in an upcoming edition. Maizels also introduced Hipkiss to Monika Kinley, who, along with her late husband Victor Musgrave, made one of the first collections of what is termed ‘Outsider Art’. The collection now includes several Hipkiss pieces and the tags ‘Outsider’ or ‘Visionary’ are often associated with his name. However, despite a certain perceived stylistic common ground with a few deceased Outsiders, Hipkiss has never felt comfortable with the label, regarding himself simply as a self-taught contemporary artist.

It was in the States that - thanks to these early contacts, both of whom remain good friends with the artist - Hipkiss began to garner significant interest and make sales. His career has progressed steadily; in the 90s, he produced three more outsize works - London, Europe and Mongrel Global 37 - all of which have been acquired by public collections. In the meantime, Alpha returned to university to study Sociology and Media Politics at the age of 30, gaining a 1st class honours degree; Chris was so inspired by her enjoyment of the process that he was driven to complete the education he’d missed, between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, at home. He followed on with a 1st class honours degree in Geography and American Studies, gained at Canterbury Christ Church College in 1999.

In 2001 - just after the fall of The Towers in NY - Chris and Alpha moved to France where they had bought an old house in a village near Montpellier. His love of the landscapes and wildlife of Doddington has given much inspiration for his work; however Hipkiss likes to draw what he sees, albeit through his own lens, and a need for variety in this input has fuelled a desire to see many types of scenery. The plains, waters and mountains of the lush French Mediterranean are thus beginning to become evident in the artist’s newer work. The move, according to him, was also prompted by a desire to feel more European and to learn a new language in its rightful context. Alpha is now a writer and publisher of specialist fiction and the couple spend the majority of their time working in the same room in the company of their four cats.

July 2005.
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