2019 The View From The ArtLab and Sold Art 2018

As 2019 is officially on us I thought that rather than the usual New Year, New Me message I would start the year with a big thank you to all of you who have been part of my journey as an artist. Not only is this a thank you, it is more of an open personal message to the people who have bought my art over the years and also those others who have shown tremendous love and support in everything that I do, starting with my wonderful wife Jennie, my amazingly talented children, and now their children, and of course my close friends. My family like to stay out of the limelight so they rarely get a mention but without them I am sure that I would not function well at all! It gives me immense pleasure to know that my particular take on modern art continues to bring great joy to so many, some of my sold art from last year are featured in this post. I have lost count on how many times I have been told that a particular painting or paintings of mine can be so uplifting and are a delight to wake up to. In addition to those who collect my art there are many from around the world, from Alaska to Wolfsburg, who regularly write to me and continue to follow me and my work. Some of whom have been doing so for over a decade, and I apologise for not always getting back to those emails and messages as I should but I always have good intentions.

During 2018 I sold art through Saatchi and also direct to individual collectors from all walks of life, including a Police Detective, a Merchant Banker, a Retired Teacher, a Royal Mail Sorting Office employee and an Art Auction House Adminstrator. Thank you.

I feel blessed and I am constantly humbled by the people who buy my art, Be it one painting or a love affair with and a collection of many of my paintings. One such family who collect my art made a studio visit during late summer and purchased “Spitfire Boys” and “Duo – An Optical Illusion” to add to their collection of Chris Billington Modern Art with which they are gradually filling up their beautiful old farmhouse in East Sussex, “Duo – An Optical Illusion” is pictured below in its new home in which a previously purchased painting of mine, “Diving In Brockwell Park, 20 x 22in, from my 2011 Stoneman Gallery Lido Exhibition, can be seen at the bottom of the stairs.

Also included in my sold art of 2018 was a painting which was commissioned by a client after seeing my painting for Truro City Council, ‘Three Spires Under Blue Skies’ hanging in the Council Chambers at Truro City Hall. I do not often revisit a subject with an almost identical painting but on this occassion I made an exception, the resulting 100 x 120cm painting ‘Three Spires Under Bluer Skies’ can be seen below in its new Truro home.

I rarely respond to requests for art from charities and fundraisers these days as I have given away many paintings over the years. However I was most pleased to have donated a 12 x 12in painting ‘Six Choughs Over Kynance’  to help Falmouth’s Local Community Radio Station SourceFM with their Crowdfunding effort to raise funds for their studio accessibility upgrade project. I am delighted that ‘Six Choughs Over Kynance’ sold for £600, raising well over half a thousand pounds towards the fabulous grand total of £6,130 successfully raised by the unpaid volunteer station staff, with 95 supporters in 35 days

The other notable milestone for me in 2018 was the launch of Jynnji Records in September. I am simply overwhelmed by the support that my label is getting, both from within and without the industry and I do realise that particularly in the early stages a lot of the interest is coming from supporters of my art, once again thank you to all. In an age of information and attention seeking overload I am gratified to know that there are people who are genuinely interested in all of my art output in whatever form. Unlike many, one thing that I try not to do is bombard you with useless information and updates merely because I like the sound of my own voice. If I have nothing to say you can be assured that I will not post for the sake of it. The downside of this approach is that I do not update this site regularly but with a lot more happening with Jynnji the updates will be a little more frequent!

So on to 2019

Obviously a main focus of my attention and energy for this coming year is Jynnji. The label is growing organically and gathering fans and I am very carefully and slowly adding to the Jynnji family of artists. The latest signing – a Prog Rock Band, Dark Corners – illustrating how eclectic the label is. My aim is genuinely to try and do things a little different, for Jynnji acts and for Jynnji fans, and there should be some excting developments in 2019. Starting this week, we have begun recording the debut album from Loic Rich, working title Here I Am, and followed up mid January by our first release of 2019, the debut album by Greek sound, synth and Theremin experementalist Lambro Papazois of elconEstharoe. This will be followed by the debut release by Dark Corners, an EP to introduce their brand of Prog Rock music to the world!

This does not mean that my painting will suffer from neglect, rather it just means that I have to stretch a little more time out of each day! I am currently working on some larger paintings which will all be completed in 2019 and later in January, once we have recorded the new album for Loic I shall be back in the ArtLab working on a completely new painting which I hope will become the centrepiece of my work in 2019.

On a completely different note, I was thrilled to be able to make the last Home London Derby for Arsene Wenger in April last year in which Arsenal had an emphatic win against West Ham 4-1. Here is a photo taken pre-match with me and the wonderful Frankie Dettori outside the North Bank. The atmosphere in the ground was phenomenal. Good Luck Arsenal and new head coach Unai Emery in 2019!

Once again my most heartfelt thank you to all supporters and fans of my art both here in the UK and from around the world, and thank you for embracing my new project Jynnji.  I sincerely hope that 2019 this brings you everything that you wish for.  And as always as we head into 2019 it is my firm belief that ‘anything is possible’, have the best year and as a reminder of the beauty of all things my first Camelia of 2019 burst into life on January 1st, right on cue!