In the shadow of great fortune and brighter genius, Ptolemy Bognor-Regis has emerged as one of the most talked-about figures in contemporary abstract art. The son of a shipping magnate turned media tycoon, Regis might have been content with a life of patronage or leisure—but instead, he’s hurled himself into the centre of artistic inquiry with a singular ambition: to create the last painting. The final word. The full stop of the visual age. We sat down with him to discuss his mission, his methods, and the piece he calls “A Bank Robbery in the Environs of Machynlleth.”
Interviewer: Ptolemy, first of all, thank you for making time for this interview. Your latest work is causing a stir—critics have called you “the Rothko of Wales” and it “an act of chromatic violence.” What do you see when you look at A Bank Robbery in the Environs of Machynlleth?
Ptolemy Bognor-Regis:
Thank you. What I see is the inside of a scream—a narrative collapsed into geometry. It’s not a painting of a bank robbery, obviously. It’s a record of the tension before and after such an event. The colour fields are characters. The orange is the alarm. The purple, a kind of communal numbness. The black shapes? They’re decisions, heavy with consequence.
Interviewer: There’s a boldness to your use of negative space. In this piece, the forms press against each other but never quite resolve. Is that intentional?
Regis:
Absolutely. Resolution is the enemy of truth. I’m not here to make peace on canvas—I’m here to expose the war beneath it. The non-resolution is the story. Harmony would be a betrayal of what I’m trying to capture.
Interviewer: You’ve described your artistic goal as “striving after the ultimate painting, after which nothing more can be said.” That’s a monumental ambition. Where does that come from?
Regis:
It comes from impatience, honestly. Impatience with repetition, with the saturation of half-statements in art. I grew up surrounded by enormous wealth, which gave me access—but also a kind of nausea. When everything is possible, meaning becomes slippery. I paint to locate meaning again. To pin it down once and for all, and then be done with it. After the final painting, there should be silence. A holy hush.
Interviewer: That sounds spiritual.
Regis:
It is. But not religious. I think of painting like monastic labor. Endless refinement, shaving away noise, until you hit the essential chord. One brushstroke away from revelation, always.
Interviewer: You’ve said you don’t use assistants, despite having the resources. Why?
Regis:
Because the images record my hesitation, doubt, and triumph. No assistant can fake that. I don’t want a painting that looks clean—I want one that’s wounded. That’s something you have to do yourself. Otherwise it’s merely decoration.
Interviewer: There’s a lot of speculation about your process. Some say you work in total darkness and then assess the result later. Is that true?
Regis (laughs):
Yes. And no. I do draw blind sometimes, but not always in darkness. It’s about trust—trust in the materials, trust in the moment. It’s like holding your breath underwater and waiting for the exact second the body tells you: Now. Draw that.
Interviewer: Looking ahead, do you believe the “final painting” is near?
Regis:
Some days I think I’ve already made it and just haven’t realized. Other days, I think I’m still a thousand lifetimes away. But I’ll keep trying. That’s all I can do.
Interviewer: What’s next for you?
Regis:
Silence. Reading. And perhaps that mythical final work.
A Bank Robbery in the Environs of Machynlleth is currently on view at Pimlico Wilde, London.
