Joe Coleman is a genuine outlaw. Born on 22 November 1955, he grew up opposite a cemetery and rapidly became fascinated with the dual nature that defines humanity. Good and evil, saint and sinner, sacred and profane, normal and freak, healthy and sick - all elements which would subsequently come to inform his art.

At the age of eight, Coleman drew a series of representations of the Stations of the Cross and the martyrdom of the saints. The tension between physical agony and ecstasy with spirituality still riddles his work. By the age of ten, his painting of "garbage" won him an award and the acclaim of the then President' s wife, Lady Bird Johnson.