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The Late Joshua Compston
Wednesday, 31 May 2006
Nicola Green's portrait of her friend the late Joshua Compston has been selected for the 2006 BP Portrait Award showing from 15 June - 17 September at the National Portrait Gallery, London and from 25 November 2006 - 3 February 2007 at the Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum, Scotland and from 31 March - 20 May 2007 at the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol.

Compston was the director of conceptual art gallery Factual Nonsense in Hoxton. London. and organised the Fête Worse Than Death events in the late 90s, which featured YBAs Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Gavin Turk and Gary Hume.

After Joshua’s death, his mother chose Green to paint his portrait with the help of photographs, his death mask and fond memories.

"Her Joshua looms down from a great height, his hair as tactile as ermine, an empty packet of Craven A at his feet."
Evening Standard C. R. Cecil




"Compston was a pivotal personality in the Shoreditch art scene of the mid 1990s, until his death at the age of 25 in March 1996. An enigmatic figure, his great creative energy was the driving force of his life, art his weapon. His lasting success has been to bring together a group of artists now at the forefront of the London art scene. Yet Compston¹s attempt to establish a 'capitalism of the avant garde' foundered, in part due to an inability to recognise the implications of his ambitious schemes. In 1992 Joshua Compston set up Factual Nonsense, a 'gallery and project centre' in Charlotte Road in Hoxton, in a Victorian furniture factory. From this space he organised a whirlwind seven openings in six months and began to feel the existence of a community, giving him the confidence he needed to organise 'Fete worse than Death', the first of many local events. This took place in the streets around Factual Nonsense, a mile away from Sarah Lucas and Tracey Emin¹s 'The Shop' in Bethnal Green.

The list of participants reads like a Who¹s Who of young British art Tracey Emin, Gillian Wearing, Matt Collishaw, Gavin Turk, Gilbert & George, Sarah Lucas, Gary Hume, Damian Hurst, Angus Fairhurst, Jessica Voorsanger, Sue Webster and Tim Noble, Molly Nyman, Hannah Greenway."

No Fun Without You
The Art of Factual Nonsense
by Jeremy Cooper
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