Tracy Bickley is the artist behind Care Home for Punks, a body of work that fuses raw text, urban intervention, and social reflection. She can often be seen wandering the streets with cans of black paint, climbing over discarded furniture, and plastering her thoughts onto old mattresses abandoned by their owners. For Bickley, the act is both protest and therapy – a release for the heart and soul.
The mattress becomes her canvas and metaphor. Worn, stained, and thrown away, it carries traces of intimacy, illness, rest, and neglect. Onto these surfaces she sprays phrases that are direct, humorous, defiant, or quietly tender. The black paint cuts sharply across faded fabric, creating a visual tension between vulnerability and voice.
Care Home for Punks questions what happens to identity as bodies age and subcultures mature. It challenges invisibility. The work exists somewhere between street art, conceptual text practice and photographic documentation. What begins as an impulsive act in a back alley becomes a carefully framed image, preserving the message long after the mattress itself has disappeared.
At its core, the series is about reclaiming space – physically and emotionally – and giving language to thoughts that might otherwise remain unspoken.
You describe wandering the streets with black paint as therapy for the heart and soul. What does the act of spraying onto discarded mattresses give you emotionally?
The work is somatic, a physical purging, cathartic and offers immediate release and an immense sense of freedom. After the act I feel lighter, unburdened. Often the words make me laugh. When I started, I was carrying around so much heartache and pain that had been unearthed by therapy and had yet to find a home. I need some kind of release. The work offered intuition beyond therapy. The first mattresses wasn’t planned. I happened to pass it and later went back and painted ‘FUCK YOUR LONELY HEART’. For two years I secretly ran out at night to paint, never revealing I was behind them. I believe unwanted thoughts can so easily drip into your soul and cause serious stress. Nobody wants to carry the burden of a heavy and broken heart. I can find serenity, answers, peace and even hope.
Why mattresses? What does that particular object symbolise for you?
So much of our life is left imprinted on a mattress. Like I said, the first one wasn’t planned, and I didn’t have much money for art materials. I could however buy paint; scrawl my truth on these blank canvasses and the next day they were gone. Almost like a faceless confessional box. I had felt physically, emotionally discarded myself. I will never feel ashamed about how much I have been prepared to give myself to a relationship, give my body to sex and spend time in bed with someone if there was a chance love will last. I have learnt the hard way, staying in relationships knowing that they have already eyed the exit. Blind hope is dangerous. Better to try and fall in love with your eyes wide open and your heart met with kindness.
‘MAKING LOVE TO A LOVER WE KNOW IS LEAVING US ANYHOW.’
The surfaces you choose are worn and abandoned. Are you intentionally working with objects that carry a sense of neglect?
Life, trying to live, survive and Love is dirty business. It’s one big Hussle. I think unless we are lucky or in denial, we all know what it feels like to feel worn out, abandoned and neglected. This is a shared experience. While I can look at others to take a portion of the blame: I can also choose to look at myself and discover my patterns, why I repeat shit and then say; what is the lesson? I use art to make steps and support that change. The urban environment is where I was born and raised. I grew up learning to love my neighbourhoods and see the poetry in the most unlikely places. From New York, London, Paris to LA I have used these landscapes to share my voice. If a passing stranger photographs the work before the mattress are removed, it’s yours. Its free. These big white canvases are the surrounding look inviting to me.
Your phrases feel immediate and unfiltered. Do they arise spontaneously, or are they developed over time?
They arise. I think if I planned them, there would be far fewer spelling mistakes. The feeling bubbling up in me at the time because that is the impetuous to make the work. The movements are fast; words flow through me and after I feel a great sense of peace. When I don’t feel anything and create, you can see the outcome isn’t the same. I don’t have a connection to the result or my emotional state.
The project title Care Home for Punks carries humour and bite. What does it mean to you?
I am not getting any younger. I am moving towards my inevitable death. Not yet, I hope. I want to create and go out in care home with like-minded people that centres art and creativity. I might include pole dancing, naked yoga and play dirty Jenga. I want to indulge in all the food, drink and drugs I have never allowed myself to indulge in; while I still have life to live, roads to run, mountains to climb, oceans to swim and future lovers to come knocking and make me a cuppa tea. I want Joy and celebration now, always and at the end.
‘SPANK ME AND I WILL FORGIVE YOU.’
Do you see your work as social commentary, personal catharsis, or both?
While the work started as my own personal catharsis, it has inevitably created space to strike up conversations with others, creating a dialogue of shared ground and deep personal connections: the work has honed a light on what is happening in the world. I feel that I will not be able to continue without exploring how global politics is affecting me. I have loved the conversations the work has inspired. I painted about a person falling off a bed after years of moving further away from their partner. A lady who confessed to suffering with mental health issues bought the work.
‘AND THEN I FELL OFF’
By photographing the mattresses, you preserve something that is otherwise temporary. How important is documentation within the project?
I love photography and want to explore that side of the work more. Life is a journey and we all collect benchmarks be it unconsciously or consciously. I consciously want to look back at images written in dark time and know that I am now standing fully in my light. I have taken my recovery by the reigns and steered my way out. I am proud of that. Documentation and photography makes the art. I can take my own emotions out and create a piece of work that stands alone and gives meaning to the observer beyond my own.
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- Tracy Bickley Under the Mattress © Sam Hiscox
How have people reacted when they see you physically climbing over rubbish to make the work?
When I started out, because of the time slot, I spoke to a lot of drug dealers, night workers and bin collectors. Some who waited for me to finish before they took the mattress away. As I got braver or failed to wake up early, I talked to cleaners, joggers and dog walkers. In Paris I was circled by police who google translated and moved on. ‘I AM NOT HER ANYWAY’ Everyone I have encountered has been curious, loved what I have said and been open to talk about what and why I was doing this. I have had many funny live commentaries, epically in New York where street banter is a whole world of its own. One guy a few months ago said; “If he didn’t know, damn he knows now.” At the TATE LATE – TATE MODERN viewers were able to jump on the mattress’s and lay all over them.
Do you feel the project speaks more to a specific generation, or is it broader than that?
I speak to everyone in person and in my work. I don’t judge. Everyone has a seat at my table until they don’t.
For many years if you read Facebook, Timeout, Twitter and Instagram you would believe that I was a man. When you are faceless, you are ageless and your voice lands wherever it hits. I saw my work show up on a young guys record cover. If you find a way to use my work to express your own, fine. That’s a full circle and transcends age.
Looking ahead, do you see this work expanding into new environments or evolving beyond mattresses?
Yes, defiantly. I have given the last few years to writing a novel. While I wait for the edits, I will use the time to go back to the collages that I was working on. I want to eventually incorporate them onto mattress fabric and padding. They will be larger pieces and require space and money. I’m interested in zines and would like to make a book of photos with my writing. Why not throw in a tote bag while I am at it.
For more information visit Instagram care_home_for_punks_ and ms_bickley
You can currently view Tracy’s work at Zebra One Gallery in Hamsptead, London
