From the Terrace to the Tate
Published by SEVENSTORE
Author: Millie Throp
Dialled in from his London apartment on a pale February morning, fine artist Jamie Liam Humphrey would have once shrugged off any clairvoyant projections of his future painting accolades had they been imposed upon him back in school, denoting with dark wit, that “you’d probably get bullied for it”. And yet, today, in the midst of the 34-year-old’s acclaimed exhibition, Grass Roots Part I, the white-washed walls of Shoreditch’s Art Practice Studio stand newly permeated with his latest canvases, inlaid purposefully with themes of nostalgia and sports fandom.
Behind the easel, Humphrey is less concerned with artistic rules of thumb, where the formal elements of his paintings are fragmented by goal post and net, and hung above titles like, ‘Dad, the dog’s just chewed up one of my new preds’. Evidently, his work speaks in satirical tongue to the cult coterie of football fans who picked out the iconic adidas Predator Boot in childhood. But whereby his inspired exposures can also ameliorate outsider perceptions of the sport, his practise aims to derail its stereotypes of hooliganism and the hyper-masculine.
But just as fashion has inched closer to his chosen sport over the years, welded by the stylistic counterculture of the luxury-dressing “casuals” atop British football stands in the 70s and 80s, modern designers like Grace Wales Bonner have further recontextualised the football shirt for catwalks and editorials. Championed by artists like Jamie, with all eyes on the pitch, this unition begs to question whether the gallery system should be trailing a similar trajectory. He claims with confidence that “something is definitely brewing”, highlighting commonalities between the flick of a brush and the manoeuvring of a slide tackle.
In conversation with SEVENSTORE, Humphrey’s easy cadence and flaring creativity centres his longstanding affection for the pursuit of match day. Perched beside his home keeping of Stone Island garments, talk is easy; he pauses only to contextualise the late but organic roots of his visuality and his adolescent bonding to Leeds United FC.
Raised in rural Harrogate, local pastures were not what informed Jamie’s pictorial choices, but gifted him with a grounded nature that proves rare in the capital. “Growing up in Yorkshire was a beautiful thing,” he starts, “in that there London, you don’t get as many ‘hellos’ or ‘how are yous’”. Now an established name amongst the city’s independent arts scene, having celebrated previous pack-out shows, and a sold-out photo publication, he is unaffected by the stirring of his success, instead defining himself as “a simple person”. Having been taught that “arrogance is not a thing to cherish”, he carries this still, making sure to always say ‘thank you’ to the bus driver.
But just as Yorkshire’s verdant scenery did not instil a love for depicting still-life, attending a Leeds vs. Nottingham Forest game at the age of five also did not directly influence the artist’s aspirations to create. Instead, it hooked him to football’s fresh-aired togetherness and its hum of half-time antics. “Football came before art for me. I started playing as soon as I could kick a ball. I don’t think I knew what art was at the time. But if you could say that wolfing down a pie and chips mid-game was an ambition, I had huge ambitions,” he laughs. “You’re surrounded by thousands of people cheering, sharing emotions. Where I am now with art is massively based around football, so if it wasn’t for going to that game with my Uncle Ant, who knows? Maybe I’d be painting portraits. I guess it’s spawned it all”.
Moved by the creative impulse that had arisen between the thumps and thuds of weekend kickabouts, Jamie left school at 16, moving to Brighton to undertake a fine art degree. “I started painting when I was 18, so I got to the party quite late”, he recounts. “I always felt like there was this void; painting for the sake of it. Not aimlessly making patterns, but I didn’t have much structure”. Eventually, it took a blending of his athletic and artistic drives for purpose to unfold. “From lines scrubbed in chalk to mark-making nets, these helped me tap into what I wanted to get from my work, and that’s massively influenced by The Beautiful Game,” he notes, as his swatches of emerald and cobalt began boldening with meaning.
Pushing past the possible polarities of sport and design, Humphrey’s hobbies offered artforms in their own right, but he explains that “when I first started getting into painting, the two felt alienated. It was almost like you couldn’t like both. It felt like, ‘I’m this macho kind of guy who loves to play football, but now I want to tap into this creative me. Do I need to only pick one of them?’” Under his present gaze, “playing sport is a sense of expression”, likened to his visual practice, but looking back to a national game held back by arguable stereotypes and segregation, his concerns deemed art emasculating and football, too far removed to portray in a frame.
Presently, marrying both fields with gentle abstractions of oil, spray and charcoal, Jamie stands as an ambassador for artistic fluidity and freedom. “I hope I can be a focal point in encouraging the world to align together more and more,” he voices, introducing finer representations of football to the gallery audience. Here, he welcomes a more expressive environment on the pitch, where diversity and creativity are applauded at last.
Now spotting the holes in past hypocrisy, Jamie goes forth without prejudice, viewing his work and the worlds “which have [his] heart”, holistically. “I think I was once quite scared. It makes me sad that I didn’t have the confidence [to pursue art] at first, but I guess everyone needs a push sometimes,” referring to a period that had once retained his artistry a sneaking skill. Hoping that if not to become a “pioneer” for social improvement, the painter notes he “would like to push it in the right direction”.
Made feasible by a positive quake in national football culture at all levels of play – England’s Lionesses won the Women’s Euros in 2022 and placed second at the 2023 Women’s World Cup; 13.5 million people across England now play recreationally – thus amplifying empowerment and change, Jamie has found peace with his interests. Permitting his “most honest work to date”, with pleasure, he declares that “people are less afraid to have a voice in it now. It has made me feel like ‘okay. I’m just going to do what I want”. Underlining that his unifying of studio and stadium is bigger than himself, Jamie chalks parallels like a grid atop a mowed pitch. “You look at people like Pirlo, that play like an artist. There are footballers who are so flamboyant. You get masculine people worshiping these players, which goes against everything they would usually say,” proving the similarities between the two crafts are closer to home than some may think.
So, as the silhouette of ‘the socially acceptable player’ softens further, Jamie has since discovered renderings of The Beautiful Game beyond just his own, with “football now less based around the [archetypally] masculine.” And with designers like Croydon’s Martine Rose transfiguring the flailing modes of menswear, featuring vibrant jerseys and footy studs in her runway presentations, the traditionally male-dominated activity is finding a new face, serving as an access point of working-class familiarity within the highbrow. Hopeful, he mentions that “if Martine ever wants to make a dodgy goalkeeper top with me, then I’m all for it. She is unreal. Creativity around football was always naff, but it’s going from strength to strength. It’s wicked”.
In the same vein, he mentions Tottenham Stadium’s neighbouring OOF Gallery, focusing solely on football-related creations, commissioned by far and wide makers. Just as fans would have once never dreamed of adding an exhibition to the routine of weekend match days, the venue’s intersection of humble activity and accessible art now offers a new tradition to future generations of players, artists, sons, and daughters.
Whilst manifestly not alone in his merging of muddied shins and mixed-media technique, painting exists to Humphrey as a highly personal act, implementing truth into his palette. “I guess, as an artist, you’re pouring your heart out for every person to see, giving them an opportunity to think they know about you, or your work. Everyone’s a critic”.
And in making light of this human vulnerability, his recent exhibition, Grass Roots Part I, marks a further refinement in his oeuvre. A final resolve in his mindset, where every piece exploits his love for the game with greater texture and tenacity, Humphrey has now grown less affected by the perceptions of others. “I feel fulfilled, like I just want to get the ball rolling with it…excuse the pun. People might hate it, people might love it, but I feel content. It’s like subconsciously, the world has made me more comfortable”, highlighting an instinctual trust and gratitude for greater inclusivity on the pitch.
Outside of the studio’s four walls and tournaments with The AFC Cherry Pickers, Jamie bides time “causing havoc”. But, besides perching up at the Hackney hotspot, Shankeys – an endorsement on behalf of his close friends – he can’t seem to detach from his making. “Right now, art is consuming me 24/7. It was always my pastime, but now I feel like it’s me; it has identity”. Closing out our conversation with his familiar, salt-of-the-earth candour, he explains a recent instance of reality weighing in. “I stepped back from my studio and looked at what I was doing, and just started laughing. I was just like…‘it’s happened’. I was cracking up”. The moment proves circular. “I’m seeing football down the catwalk; football in the galleries. It’s mad how it’s happened. I just feel like I’m there”.