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CHRIS BILLINGTON b 1955
Selected Exhibitions
2008 Queens Hotel, Penzance
City Gallery, Truro
2009 The Lane Gallery, Truro
Truro City Arts Festival
Cornwall Open Studios
Fal River Festival
Atlanta Airport, Atlanta, USA
Zafiros, Truro
Spring Gallery, Falmouth
Grandon Gallery, Arizona, USA
The National Trust, St.Just
WWFP, Truro
2010 Affordable Art Fair, Bristol
The Bristol Gallery, Bristol
Fal River Festival
Cornwall Open Studios
Heimbech KunstAkademie, Germany
ART75, Jubilee Pool, Penzance
Stoneman Gallery, Penzance
Steele Gallery, Falmouth
Stoneman Gallery, Penzance
Stoneman Gallery, Penzance
Moss, Norway
Gallery Bautista, Valencia, Spain
2011 Atelier Raderscheidt, Germany
Muna Goetze Gallery, Germany
Bristol Art Fair, Bristol
Julich Museum, Germany
Kulturraum, Kall, Germany
Bureau Gallery, Manchester
Stoneman Gallery, Penzance
Studio 2091, Ohio, USA
La Nacional, New York, USA
Private Salon, Dundee, Scotland
2012 The Bristol Gallery, Bristol
The Bristol Gallery, Bristol
The Bristol Gallery, Bristol
EAGL Gallery, Berlin, Germany
Art Dubai, Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai
Marina di Pisa, Italy
Night of Festivals, Nottingham
Hall For Cornwall, Truro
The ARTHouse Gallery, Bournemouth
Television appearances
2009 ‘The Fourth Plinth’ Sky Arts
’ 90 Years – 90 Artists’ ITV Westcountry
‘ Arirang World Today’ Arirang TVKorea
Behold The Astral Light Of Egypt (2012)Mixed media on canvas50 x 100 cm
The venerable initiator, in his robes of blue and gold, slowly raised his jeweled wand and pointed with it into the darkness revealed by the tearing of the silken curtain - “Behold the Light of Egypt! “
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CHRIS BILLINGTON
2012 ~ Signs Secrets & SymbolsFrom the cosmologies and mysticism of ancient civilisations, going back to the Olmec and Maya people of Central America and beyond - with their references to 2012 in the Mesoameri-can Long Count Calendar - and, within the limits of 27 paint-ings, Chris Billington spans centuries of esoteric and scientific thinking as he moves from past, through present and into the future with Quantum Physics, taking in elements of alchemy, belief systems, secret knowledge and science along the way.
Several years in the planning this is his response to the signifi-cance that has been attached to the period of time that we are now living through, specifically the year 2012.
Working from a combination of extensive research, note taking, photographs and imagination, he has captured and filtered fragments of this enigmatic information and translated it’s power and energy through the visual device of 27 new paintings.
“The number of works created is symbolic and itself forms part of the structure of the exhibition. Apart from the well known mystical associations of the numbers 3 and 9, and 3 X 9, the number 27 is significant as being the number coded into the English Alphabet - whereby the alphanu-meric sum of pairing 2 numbers always equals 27. If you were to number the alphabet from A = 1 through to Z = 26 and fold the alphabet in half at mid -point between, N and M, each pair, such as BY, CW etc. always equals 27.”
Chris Billington’s work has advanced in new directions and has expanded not just to further explore the metaphysical world but also that of ancient symbols and secret codes. He has produced a set of allegorical works which are populated with coded allusions, correspondingly reflected in the titles. Com-bined with the absolute materiality of pigments these small vibrant tablets of art are sparked with his intuitive sense of colour in a most alchemical way.
This exhibition embraces the cosmos and man’s place in it with paintings that, through emblematic imagery, reveal some of the elements and understanding that seemingly have been woven into our collective memory for all time.
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Paradoxica Emblemata (2012)Acrylic on canvas50 x 60 cm
A homage to the work of London based 17th Century alchemist, Dionysus A Freher.
The relationship between nothing and something.
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Gates Of Atlantis (2012)Mixed media on canvas50 x 60 cm
For all that we have here, lying within the mouth of which we speak, is evidently a haven having a narrow entrance; but that yonder is a real ocean, and the land surrounding it may most rightly be called, in the fullest and truest sense, a continent.
Plato’s Timaeus
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Golden Arc (2012)Mixed media on canvas50 x 70 cm
From Jordan to Chartres
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K’ubul (2012)Acrylic on canvas80 x 60 cm
Sacred life force
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Transit Of Venus (2012)Acrylic on canvas60 x 50 cm
Harmonic resonance
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The Covenant, The Sword (2012)Mixed media on canvas50 x 100 cm
Non nobis Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam
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Tria Prima (2012)Acrylic on canvas40 x 40 cm
Three primes of Alchemy ~ Sulfur, Mercury, Salt
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The Transmigration Of Pythagoras (2012)Mixed media on canvas50 x 60 cm
Evolutionary cycles. The concept of transmigration was a central motif in Pythagoras’ philosophy
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Temple Of The Moon (2012)Mixed media on canvas50 x 100 cm
The ancient Incan Temple Of The Moon contains the three planes of the Incan Religion, the world above, the physical life and the world below, it overlooks the Temple Of The Sun.
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Temple Of The Sun (2012)Mixed media on canvas50 x 100 cm
The pyramid of Teotihuacán was named The Pyramid or Temple of The Sun by the Aztecs, hundreds of years after it had been abandoned. It is the third largest pyramid in the world and is oriented slightly northwest of the horizon point of the setting sun on two days a year, August 12 and April 29.
August 12 is significant because it would have marked the date of the initial day of the Maya Long Count calendar.
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The Holographic Principle (2012)Mixed media on canvas50 x 60 cm
The Holographic Principle suggests that the entire universe can be seen as a two-dimensional information structure “painted” on the cosmological horizon, such that the three dimensions we observe are only an effective description at macroscopic scales and at low energies.
In essence, the 3 dimensional world that we experience is simply a reflection where everything lives on a surface rather than in volume.
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An Almighty Shift In Consciousness (2012)Acrylic on canvas50 x 60 cm
Geomagnetic reversal
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Arc Angel (2012)Acrylic on canvas100 x 70 cm
Radiating out from the sun bringing courage, strength, truth integrity. and protection.
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Singing To A Star King (2012)Acrylic on canvas50 x 60 cm
Mirroring the motion of the stars across the sky.
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Fractions Of Horus (2012)Mixed media on canvas40 x 30 cm
The Eye of Horus fraction system was based on the Eye of Horus, symbol of good health and protection. These fractions all with the power of 2 in their denominators were used to record land and grain, with all of the parts adding up to 63/64ths, symbolic that no individual can ever have the complete knowledge of the Universe.
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The Divine Illuminator (2012)Mixed media on canvas50 x 60 cm
The God of wisdom and letters and the Divine Illuminator worshipped through the planet Mercury.
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And Accordingly Proceed The Knowledgeable (2012)Mixed media on canvas50 x 60 cm
The above from the below, and the below from the above, the work of the miracle of the One.
And things have been from this primal substance through a single act. How wonderful is this work! It is the main principle of the world and is its maintainer.
Its father is the Sun and its mother the Moon; the Wind has borne it in its body, and the earth has nour-ished it.
The father of talisman and the protector of miracles whose powers are perfect, and whose lights are confirmed
A fire that becomes earth.
Separate the earth from the fire, so you will attain the subtle as more inherent than the gross, with care and sagacity.
It rises from Earth to Heaven, so as to draw the lights of the heights to itself, and descends to the Earth; thus within it are the forces of the Above and the Below;
Because the light of lights within it, thus does the darkness flee before it.
The force of forces, which over-comes every subtle thing, and pene-trates into everything gross.
The structure of the microcosm is in accordance with the structure of the macrocosm.
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Regent Of The Sun (2012)Mixed media on canvas60 x 80 cm
Reflecting all in the universe, the sun in all it’s streaming glory glittered as a great sun-aura in space.
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One In Essence, Three In Aspect (2012)Mixed media on canvas50 x 60 cm
In this trinity is hidden the wisdom of the whole world
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The Emerald Tablet (2012)Mixed media on canvas60 x 80 cm
The oldest and one of the most revered of all the alchemical formula is the sacred Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus.
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Fire Of Transformation (2012)Acrylic on canvas50 x 50 cm
Philosopher of Fire
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Harmony Of The Spheres (2012)Acrylic on canvas50 x 50 cm
Pythagoras is credited with being the first to consider the earth as a globe revolving with the other planets around a central fire.
He explained the harmonious arrangement of things as that of bodies in a single, all-inclusive sphere of reality, moving according to a numerical scheme and proposed that the heavenly bodies are separated from one another by intervals in simple ratios corresponding to the harmonic lengths of strings. The movement of the spheres giving rise to a musical sound the ‘harmony of the spheres’ which Pythagoras was said to have the ability to hear.
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Double Slit, Parallel Worlds (2012)Mixed media on canvas60 x 80 cm
Thomas Young’s Double Slit Experiment of 1803 reveals an astonishing view of our world and how we influence it, suggesting that we create reality merely by the act of observing it.
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M-Theory, The Mother Of All Superstrings (2012)Mixed media on canvas60 x 90 cm
M-theory is an extension of string theory, being the unique supersymmetric theory in eleven dimensions.
Because the dimensionality exceeds that of superstring theories in 10 dimensions, proponents believe that the 11-dimensional theory unites all five string theories - thereby earning it the labels ‘The mother of all superstrings’ and ‘The Theory Of Everything’
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World Of The 5th Sun (2012)Mixed media on canvas70 x 50 cm
The Great Cycle of Mayan Calendar is 5,125 years. According to the Maya Long Count, which was begun in 3113 BC, it is widely believed that the ending date of this 5125-year-long Great Cycle , the 5th Sun Cycle, is on the Winter Solstice of 2012, when the calendar will complete a full cycle of 5 suns.
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On Thin Ice (2012)Acrylic on canvas100 x 80 cm
A British Antarctic Survey plane flying over the disintegrating Wilkins ice shelf, the 7th major ice shelf to have broken up in the last 30 years, it started to disintegrate in 2008 , this 200m thick sheet is about 150km long and 110km wide.
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CHRIS BILLINGTON
2012 ~ Signs, Secrets & Symbols Published to accompany the Chris Billington ‘2012 ~ Signs, Secrets & Symbols’ exhibition at theARThouse Gallery, 5 July - 21 July 2012. Copyright © Chris Billington 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission of Chris Billington
