Nick Blinko

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Nick Blinko (b. 1961) is best known as the lead singer, lyricist and guitar player for the British band Rudimentary Peni and an "outsider" artist who creates all the drawings used by the band for its artwork. Blinko also played in the band The Magits, which formed before Rudimentary Peni in 1977 and was primarily electronic and inaccessible to most punk listeners.

Blinko has written a fictionalized semi-autobiographical novel with horror elements, entitled The Primal Screamer. It was published in 1995 by Spare Change Books. The book is narrated from the point of view of the therapist of one Nathaniel Snoxell (who, in the novel, also fronts a band called Rudimentary Peni) in the form of journal entries.

Blinko draws intensely dense and detailed compositions of faces, figures and obsessive patterns, which at times also incorporate fragmented phrases. Diagnosed as suffering from Schizoaffective disorder, and in the past hospitalized, Blinko creates his pictures when not taking therapeutic medication that adversely affects his ability to work. His art conjures a nightmarish, anxiety-ridden world where inner demons might be exorcised through repetitive graphic marks. Out of thousands of tiny flecks and dashes emerge elaborate visions of skeletons, mysterious symbols and religious figures. Reminiscent of the macabre images of Goya or James Ensor, Blinko creates a personal iconography that evokes the magic and menace of a rich imagination.

Another example of this is the Rudimentary Peni concept album Pope Adrian 37th Psychristiatric.

Nick Blinko currently resides on the "outskirts of London" in Abbots Langley.