“I take the silliness very seriously”: Joe Lycett on taxidermy, extinction and his debut solo exhibition – It's Nice That

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Why did the neon-clothed comedian walk into Birmingham’s most prestigious gallery? To bring some joy into the world (with some stone cold facts sprinkled in for good measure, too).
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On the day I sit down to speak to speak to Joe Lycett about his new exhibition, Every Thing Must Go, I forget that sat at the top of the It’s Nice That website is a column interrogating why celebrities seem to be having trouble pivoting into the world of art, and being taken ‘seriously’ as artists. I’m taken aback when Joe says the article has, in fact, taken him aback. On reflection, I can see why it’s unnerved him; this probably isn’t what you want to read as a world-touring-comedian-turned-artist on the opening day of your debut solo exhibition…
One point from the column seemed to have shaken Joe the most: the idea that being taken seriously involves said celebrity taking their art seriously. As a comedian, Joe asks, how on earth can he come across as taking things ‘seriously’? But while purposeful insincerity is key to the final output of Joe’s ideas – be it changing his name to Hugo Boss, or a painting of a sabre-tooth tiger that reads ‘Invisalign Brand Ambassador’ –  the input often is serious. Grief, environmentalism, extinction and how to protect a city from the uncaring hand of commercialisation all find their way into Joe’s work and current exhibition. And this care and concern for the state of the world extends into how he chooses to present his work, exhibiting in his home city of Birmingham and reinvesting back into the city.
It’s funny – as Joe and I get into a fairly scholarly debate about the state of the art world, criticism and whether the adage ‘there’s no such thing as bad press’ is true (Joe caveats by saying he’s certain Philip Schofield doesn’t think so) – his video is backdropped by a massive, bright pink and slightly deformed woolly mammoth, who I later find out is called Martin. This visual oxymoron feels like a perfect summary of Joe and his work: humour and sincerity can coexist, you just never know which one you might slap you in the face first.
I think we can safely assuage Joe’s nerves and say it’s clear he does take his art seriously. Or, as he better summarises: “I take the silliness very seriously.” Here, we chat in-depth about this landmark moment in Joe’s art career, and how humour can often be the perfect vehicle to get people thinking about the big stuff.
Joe Lycett: Every Thing Must Go (Copyright © Joe Lycett)
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Joe Lycett: Nokia (Copyright © Joe Lycett)
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Joe Lycett: Nokia (Copyright © Joe Lycett)
It’s Nice That (INT): You love Birmingham. So much so that you’ve centred your first major solo exhibition in it and around it as a place. Why is Birmingham so great?
Joe Lycett (JL): So, it is the best city in the world. Fact!
I got to the point where I felt ready to do an exhibition, and I suppose the obvious art world place would be to find a gallery in London. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised a lot of the work that I make has nods to this city, and the idea of things that we’ve lost. I feel like our city is in great change at the minute and there’s lots of things that are being literally destroyed.
But we’ve also had a bit of a Renaissance with Ozzy’s [Osbourne] final gig and his death, and everything that came with that. We were reminded as a city of how much culture we have and how we can be proud of what it has produced, which we’re not good at as a city. Manchester, Liverpool, all of these cities are a lot better at doing that.
It’s also really convenient to do the work where you live, and I try to do all my projects here, as much as I can, because Birmingham is my story. I’ll leave when I’ve run out of ways to talk about the city, but I can’t see that happening! It was a real stab in the dark approaching BMAG (Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery), because I didn’t think it was the sort of thing they would do. They have really world-class art exhibitions with, I mean, Pre-Raphaelites! It’s a very impressive institution. But I thought, why not? I can’t believe it’s happened, I’m delighted and terrified!
Joe Lycett: Ceefax (Copyright © Joe Lycett)
Joe Lycett: Woke Hell Hole (Copyright © Joe Lycett)
“I love bad taxidermy!”
INT: There’s lots of objects and people from Birmingham who’ve inspired pieces in the exhibition. I’d love to know how you know when something’s going to be the centre of your next piece?
JL: Often it’s an instinct thing, I’ll see a reference image and think it will be fun to paint – I just accrue those all the time. With this exhibition I went through the museum’s digitised collection and certain things triggered the, “Oh, I could play with that.” Then, when I actually went to the physical collection where they’ve got everything that’s not on the walls, I found the taxidermy just incredible! There’s so many really beautifully preserved animals, but then some of them are really funny and not so carefully preserved, stuff that’s been donated a hundred years ago and they have to keep it, but it doesn’t look anything like the animal that it was meant to be, with weird eyes, googly eyes. I love bad taxidermy! And I also love things like the fresco that that woman in Spain tried to fix…
INT: The Jesus? It’s one of my favourite things!
JL: Yeah! I think about that a lot, because I think that work of art – and I am calling it a work of art! – brought more happiness to the world as an aggregate than the original probably ever did or could. There’s something in the trying that was so charming and beautiful and funny and delightful, and that’s the sort of the energy that I go into what I do with – it needs to be joyful and it needs to be silly.
Joe Lycett: Mammoth (Copyright © Joe Lycett)
“That’s the sort of the energy that I go into what I do with – it needs to be joyful and it needs to be silly.”
INT: Is the taxidermy what has inspired the… woolly mammoth?
JL: Martin, yeah! So I made him on the iPad, as I’ve been doing quite a lot of digital stuff. I’m making this video game (or I’m making the assets for a video game, I don’t trust myself to learn how to make the actual animation and all that). But I thought I can roughly make the characters and then open-source it and just let the internet decide what they want to do with it. I got quite into using this 3D sculpting app called Nomad and I scanned a model of a mammoth and warped it to use as the reference, but it felt a bit like cheating.
So, I just got a ball on the app and played with it until it started to look like a mammoth. I wanted everything a bit exaggerated, the trunk rolling up on the floor, and the tusks too long. Then I went to a company called Create 180, which makes props for TV shows. It became a massively collaborative thing, I went to their studio in Greenwich loads and messed about with the wood structure that they’d made, and we had a rug-hooking event to make his fur. It became a mammoth task, if you will… I hate myself for doing that! I deserve every one-star review I get for that one individual joke.
When [Martin] came together, he was beyond what I wanted him to be! He’s so charming and everyone’s just immediately like, “What the fuck is that?” Every time I’m in this room, I’m just obsessed with him, staring at him, he’s made me happy, for sure. It feels like he gives the room a bit of geography – you have to kind of walk around him to see certain bits.
Joe Lycett: Martin (Copyright © Joe Lycett) Photography: Tom Bird
“It became a mammoth task, if you will… I hate myself for doing that! I deserve every one-star review I get for that one individual joke.”
INT: Obviously you’re a comedian-cum-artist, so a lot of your work has humour and joy in it. But this exhibition focuses on some quite serious topics: nostalgia, grief, and loss. How do you approach more weighty topics? Do you let the humour go, or does it remain central to everything you do?
JL: I try to make everything as funny as I can because ultimately my job is being daft. But with some of the pieces, like the Ozzy piece, I didn’t want to be droll in a way that would be disrespectful, so I just had a go at the best I could do of a portrait of Ozzy Osbourne, basically. I went as earnest as I could stomach, because I try not to be too earnest, and that was a good challenge. But ‘taking it seriously or not’ is hard to define for me, because I take comedy seriously, but that sort of doesn’t make sense as a sentence – I take it all seriously, because I wouldn’t do it otherwise. I take the silliness very seriously, if you know what I mean?
Then there’s a couple of my friends who I’ve painted, and I’ve added silly things that they said to me or that they said in their lives, because the reason I liked them as people was that they were funny, so I don’t want to be like “they’re dead and that’s very sad” – I want things that they did to continue making me laugh, even in their death. I don’t want anyone to be going around crying. The thing that I’ve loved is when people go round, you just hear giggling, that’s great.
There’s a bit of anger in the exhibition too. It’s not melancholy, it’s “how dare we get rid of this?” One of the pieces I think will inspire some sadness and anger is of the Electric Cinema, which was, until it closed, the oldest working cinema in the UK. I don’t know the full details, but basically the position of the guy running it was made untenable by the people that own it, because they want to knock it down and build something else. I think it would be a travesty if that was allowed to happen. So there’s things like that where it’s not funny and it’s not trying to make people sad, but I just want us to kind of pause in that moment and go, “Are we glad this has gone? ’Cause we probably could save it if we put enough into it.”
Yeah. So, that’s about as serious as it gets, but then, like, I painted Margaret Thatcher in 45 minutes!
INT: She doesn’t deserve any longer!
JL: Well, exactly! I’d given myself an hour and I polished it off in 45, so, done!
Joe Lycett: Ozzy (Copyright © Joe Lycett)
Joe Lycett: Eat Prey Love (Copyright © Joe Lycett)
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Joe Lycett: Thatcher (Copyright © Joe Lycett)
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Joe Lycett: Thatcher (Copyright © Joe Lycett)
INT: I’d love to go back to when we last spoke to you back in 2023, my brilliant ex-colleague Lucy Bourton, labeled you as “Marina Abramović, but from Birmingham.”
JL: I forgot about that!
INT: It’s maybe one of my favourite things written on the site ever. How has your art and practice developed since then?
JL: It’s been my whole brain: the last six months have been either painting or coming up with concepts for paintings, working on the exhibition. Before lockdown, art was like an exercise in sort of soothing myself, and then suddenly people seemed to be engaging with it and enjoying it. Suddenly it’s become accessible, to be frank, and to be able to sell the prints has funded other things like short films and Queens Heath Pride. I remember Grayson Perry saying that having a bit of money behind you just allows you to do that big concept stuff, like his tapestries, and that’s definitely how Martin came about, he’s a result of people buying my art. But I’m seemingly allergic to advertising, I haven’t done ads yet. Maybe I will… kicking and screaming. I’m aware that I’m very… ‘hashtag blessed’, to be able to not do that.
One thing that is new is my using raw canvas; I just bought pre-stretched stuff before. That’s opened up larger-scale works because you can store it easier. I got into this pattern of thinking I needed to get stuff out of the door before I could do more, but when you’re just rolling it as canvas, it disappears and you can do more! David Shrigley was talking to me about that, because he does everything on paper, so he can just store it all away. I tried on paper and it didn’t have the effect I wanted… it needed to be on canvas, but I hadn’t considered rolling it!
Joe Lycett: Eric Morecambe (Copyright © Joe Lycett)
Joe Lycett: Ernie Wise (Copyright © Joe Lycett)
Joe Lycett: Eric Morecambe (Copyright © Joe Lycett)
Joe Lycett: Ernie Wise (Copyright © Joe Lycett)
Joe Lycett: Ernie Wise (Copyright © Joe Lycett)
“I didn’t want to be droll in a way that would be disrespectful, so I just had a go at the best I could do of a portrait of Ozzy Osbourne.”
INT: Our last article was about your obsession with bins. Have you developed any more obsessions since then? It seems a lot of obsessions have gone into this!
JL: Yes! I always get carried away. Lots of obsession with extinct animals now – there’s so many cool ones. Particularly the Mexican lapdog, which was like this big [shows very small size with his hands]. The cutest little thing, and it just died out. I can’t believe that they didn’t keep breeding them, ’cause I want one! And not to be too alarmist, but the amount of species that have entirely gone or seen population drop since I’ve been alive… it’s like oh, we are fucking this, aren’t we? Obviously, things go extinct and the natural order changes. But most of the recent ones are our fault.
INT: It’s important to think about!
JL: It’s really so sobering. But as I also say in the introduction to the exhibition, I’m quite glad some of the things are extinct! Because I definitely wouldn’t want to be hanging around a Carnosaur or whatever? Just trying to pop to the shops and potentially get eaten alive by these huge, horrible things. So it’s all nuanced, isn’t it?
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Joe Lycett: Miss You (Copyright © Joe Lycett)
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Joe Lycett: Miss You (Copyright © Joe Lycett)
INT: Literally. When you announced the exhibition on your Instagram post you mentioned being incredibly productive. What does this productivity feel like for you? How do you know when you’re entering your flow state?
JL: I think, frankly, it’s because I’ve been restricted – I only have so many hours in a week now because of childcare. Back in the day, I would just sort of meander around thinking I had time, and now I literally don’t. I did lots when he was asleep, but I think when you’re given limited time, suddenly you go, “Oh, shit, well, I’ve got to either use it or it literally doesn’t happen.” I think that really helped. Actually, weirdly, I think I’ve done more since my son was born than I would have done in a year. From a painting point of view, I was probably doing 20 paintings a year, and I’ve done 80 for this!
INT: Funny thing isn’t it the human brain! It’s when you’re busier that all the ideas come and everything starts to slot into place.
I think if there’s one thing that just feels so distinctive about your work it’s your colour palette: often neon, lots of pinks and lots of blues. I’d love to know, do you ever just get this desire to throw that completely out of the window and just make 10 paintings in like deep, sludgy browns and greens?
JL: Not in brown! I don’t get a lot of pleasure out of brown. I was always scared of green, it was the one that eluded me! I love green when I see it in the right context; lots of my house is painted green and I love gardening. But I could never get it right. I think it’s because I was trying to use lighter greens, and they just don’t go down on the canvas in the way I like – you have to layer them loads, and it just starts to look a bit messy. But I realised if I use a deep green as a base, that often does a lot of the job. Last year, when my son was under one, the only paintings I did (because I took a year off everything, basically) were two floral works, which were just a deep green background and then loads of leaves and flowers, and then I wrote ‘Everything Is Glorious And Everything Is Fucked’ over them. They’re two of my favourite paintings, I’m really chuffed with them. I think the messaging is fairly, uh… on the nose.
It’s good to know that I have an identity, and I think that helps with the exhibition, that it’s got some cohesiveness. I’m sure one day I’ll get more ambitious with colour, but I do just love the brightness. It works, doesn’t it? Right before I post them on Instagram I always whack up the saturation! Full of colour! Great!
Joe Lycett: Netflix and Krill (Copyright © Joe Lycett)
Joe Lycett: Creme Egg (Copyright © Joe Lycett)
INT: If someone was being led around in a blindfold and they could only remove it to look and spend five minutes with one piece, which would you pick and why?
JL: One? Hmm… Well, Martin, obviously! You could spend years of your life with Martin. I’m very pleased with the Creme Egg that I’ve made, because I feel like it’s the closest to reality. I had to be a bit ambitious with colour here, because I don’t love using red either, and there’s quite a lot of red in a Creme Egg packaging. I was deliberately using a big brush and tried to not get too in the detail of it, and then when I stood back from it, I was really pleased with the way the light worked on it. I just felt like I’d found something there, a style that I was really pleased with. My favourite, though, is Ernie Wise. It’s a collab with my mum; I did a painting of Ernie Wise, and my mum did Eric Morecambe, and hers is so good! It’s a great likeness and it gets so much of his silliness across… and mine is so mad that it just makes me very happy, and his teeth are just really daft. Hard to choose, though! Maybe Thatcher?
INT: Your last exhibition was with your mum and you’ve worked with her on a lot of stuff. How did it feel working on something without her?
JL: There was a bit of guilt, actually! I sort of felt like I’d abandoned her to go off to the big gallery! But I did feel like it was time to do my own thing, and I also wanted to collaborate with other artists and see how that would go, and that’s been joyous, such a lovely part of this. It’s quite solitary when you get excited on your own and you’ve got no one to share it with. When you’re working with another artist and you’re on the same sort of flex and you can feel the thing growing and building to something that you both want to do, I found that really thrilling.
“I don’t want anyone to be going around crying. The thing that I’ve loved is when people go round, you just hear giggling, that’s great.”
INT: To round things up I just had one personal question. Some of my favourite work of yours is you singing lyrics to the tune of other songs on I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. Quite the pipes you have! Any chance you’re planning on adding another creative pursuit to your bow and releasing an album?
JL: Um, no. But it’s not passed me by! I used to do musical theatre when I was a kid and I love singing, but I’ve always sort of felt like singing’s a bit naff. I didn’t mind doing it on I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, because it’s funny singing. I suppose that maybe that’s similar to the art thing, I don’t want to look like I’ve taken anything too seriously. So I won’t sing anything earnestly, but I’ve just booked a queer choir by Fatt Butcher the drag artist, called The Full Fat Sound. We’re going to do a kind of collaborative show [tickets here] where I do some stand-up with other comedians, and the choir will accompany us in different ways… it’s a bit of an experiment! I think we might sing the theme tune, sort of like Surprise Surprise, really tacky, but pelting it out. So watch this space, is what I’d say! But I think an album’s quite a way off…
Every Thing Must Go by Joe Lycett is on at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery until 21 February 2027.
Joe Lycett: Best One Lady (Copyright © Joe Lycett)
Joe Lycett: Swordfish (Copyright © Joe Lycett)
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www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/exhibitions/every-thing-must-go
Olivia Hingley
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Olivia (she/her) is associate editor of the website, overseeing the day-to-day editorial projects as well as Nicer Tuesdays events. She joined the It’s Nice That team in 2021. ofh@itsnicethat.com
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