Artist Research Richard Billingham

Ray’s a laugh is a book by Richard Billingham. It focuses on his father Ray and other members of his family also feature. He wanted to show what kind of world he grew up in. He also went further to create a few short films. One of the films about his father, and his fathers issues. It shows him in a singular room for a significant period of time, highlighting the effect of his father's alcoholism.

“He would spend all day looking out of the window or listening to the radio. And drinking.”

Billingham’s book of the photos Ray’s a Laugh was taken to have invented a squalid realism. His pictures, surreal, claustrophobic, gave meaning to the idea of “too close to home”.