Audrey Amiss (1933-2013), a talented artist whose career was derailed by mental illness, left behind an extensive archive of paintings and journals, which acclaimed filmmaker, Carol Morley has explored to create a vivid portrait of this hilarious but tragic heroine in her latest film, Typist Artist Pirate King.
Audrey's archive comprises of 80 boxes and 50,000 sketches and paintings and on her passport she wrote her occupation as “Typist Artist Pirate King.” She did not consider herself an outsider artist, writing to her sister Dorothy: “I was once in the tradition of social realism, also called the kitchen-sink school of painting. But I am now avant-garde and misunderstood.”
Carol Morley has shaped Audrey's archive into a darkly funny road movie that interweaves the artist's artworks and journal entries into a road trip that Audrey goes on, with her psychiatric nurse, Sandra to a gallery in Sunderland where she wishes to exhibit her art.
Starring Monica Dolan as Audrey Amiss, Kelly MacDonald as Sandra, and Gina McKee as Dorothy, Audrey's sister.