Billy Martin
Scrolling through Billy Martin’s Instagram feed, at first glance, it seems to be all about cute animals, drawn in a charming naïve style.
Take a closer look. Those bunnies and mouses, while they still seem to be determined and brave, often appear to endure some kind of stress or are right in the middle of a crisis. What’s that about?
“There’s something comforting about putting complicated emotions into the mouths of tiny, wide-eyed creatures. It’s my way of processing hard things with a bit of softness and humor. That’s how I survive, by turning heavy things into something I can hold.”
Billy says that a tendency to create an inner world came early on in their childhood. But what is now populated by self-conscious bunnies used to be painted in a much darker tone.
Originating in a very small town in the French alps, they grew up with a fairly traditional set of values all around them. A chubby kid who liked theatre and punk rock did not really fit in. Like, not at all, to the point of being constantly bullied for years.
“I hadn’t an especially supportive environment. I became quite independent and creative early on as a way to create something safe for me. I loved writing super gruesome poetry and horror stories.”
At sixteen, Billy begged their parents to let them do an exchange year in the UK because they needed a break from their French boarding school where they where pushed to the verge of suicide.
They ended up in Bristol. Billy describes it as a revealing and salvaging experience. “I came into a Caribbean family. I had never experienced such joy, freedom and creativity. I studied art for the first time. I was introduced to Basquiat and Jenny Saville.”
So, when, a few years later in Vienna, their crush proposed to move to Bristol, they quit their job, sold all their stuff within a week and moved to a place they knew was "great for music and misfits".
They formed a band and Billy worked whatever jobs they could get their hands on. Made falafel, steamed clothes, worked in a pub or as an actor in a theme park. At one point, Billy started hand-poking, got an apprenticeship at a studio and bought a tattoo machine.
Less out of ambition, more out of necessity, Billy started their own studio, Picnic. To create a save environment where they could focus on their work. “It allowed me to create a space for other people to enjoy, hang out, feel save and loved and have things super organized, which makes my autistic brain happy”. Other studios where Billy had worked, did not quite fit that vibe.
Online, Picnic also functions as a comic book store for artists from all over the UK whose creations don’t fit in traditional bookstores. Billy saw the need for a space that would host the small press or self-published stuff as they had struggled before to find a place that would stock their own book of illustrations My Next Life Will Be Less Chaotic.
As an illustrator, Billy’s topics revolve a lot around mental health and it resonates with a lot of people. Who identify with the little bunnies dealing with awkwardness and overthinking. It’s all about big, complicated emotions and confusion, put in a less severe context. There’s something funny and light about an existential crisis if it’s one of a cat. Or another cute creature, fighting Billy’s own struggle with “that weird combo of deep emotional intensity and not knowing how to function in daily life.”
Billy’s journey is one of a creative who goes all-in for their passion but also of an outsider and misfit from the start. It shows in their work, being a reflection of a lifelong struggle to socialize and function, trying not to be overwhelmed by the expectations of an outer world that could not be intuitively navigated. But why does it make us smile?
“Humor has always been my way of surviving and making sense of things. Turning painful feelings into something a little funny, absurd and a little soft, feels like the only way I know how to cope.” Somehow, that makes a lot of sense.
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