Ptolemy Bognor-Regis

Interview with Ptolemy Bognor-Regis: Chasing the Ultimate Painting

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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 center 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.

Artist Diary: Abstract painter Ptolemy Bognor-Regis

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People often ask me what my paintings “mean,” and I, being an abstract painter with a classical name and a mild allergy to literalism, tend to answer with something like: “They mean what they resist.” This is a maddening response, I know. But abstraction is not there to comfort. It is there to interrupt.

I mainly work in a converted grain warehouse in Suffolk, where the light is sincere and unflattering. The walls are honest brick, and my studio is arranged according to no system I could explain to a rational adult: sketches on the ceiling, pigment samples tacked to the floor, one chair, and a radio tuned to a station I never enjoy. Clarity is the enemy of invention.

My recent series, “Soft Diagrams for Harsh Weather”, emerged during a particularly stormy winter. I began drawing rectangles—not the stoic, self-satisfied kind you find in mid-century modernism, but indecisive ones, collapsing at the corners, leaning into themselves. Colour came later: bruised yellows, bureaucratic greens, a red stolen from a 1950s Railway waiting room. These were not shapes of certainty. They were blueprints for internal architecture—plans for buildings that might be emotional, or possibly uninhabitable.

My influences shift constantly, as all good theft should. Agnes Martin, for her rigor and restraint; Malevich, for his audacity; and Etel Adnan, for showing that abstraction can be a kind of love letter to a mountain. I admire artists who understand that silence can be structural, and colour can argue without shouting.

People assume abstraction is cerebral, even cold. But for me, it is the most emotional form. When I paint, I am not making a statement—I am releasing one. Sometimes sadness arrives as a smear, sometimes as a crisp diagonal. I don’t always know which until months later, when someone else names it for me.

I don’t paint when I’m happy. I rearrange furniture or cook something unnecessarily elaborate. Happiness is circular, self-sufficient. It doesn’t need translating. Sadness, however, requires a syntax.

There is a kind of reluctant pleasure in the attention my work has lately received. The pieces I once stored in cupboards—because I didn’t trust them, or myself—now hang in galleries with proper lighting and clean floors. Critics write about my “rigorous emotional minimalism” and “subtle architectural unease.”

Fame, if we can call it that, is a peculiar byproduct. I don’t dislike it, but it’s like receiving applause for something you said in a whisper to yourself three years ago. Still, I’m grateful. Not for the recognition per se, but for the fact that people are willing to spend time with something that doesn’t give answers. That feels rare now.

And so, I continue—drawing uncertain lines in precise configurations, layering colour until it loses its first language, and trying, always, to build a space that holds a feeling without describing it.

(Selected works from “Soft Diagrams for Harsh Weather” will be on display at Pimlico Wilde Central later in the year.)

A Vision for Sale: Ptolemy’s ‘Abstract Artist For Hire’ Exhibition

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The atmosphere at the opening of Abstract Artist For Hire, the latest exhibition by Ptolemy, was charged with a sense of spectacle. The crowd—an elegant mix of collectors, critics, and the art-world’s more shadowy financiers—moved through the gallery’s crisp white space, where the luminous works pulsed from the walls like windows into a parallel world. Champagne was poured with quiet efficiency, and conversations, though lively, carried an undertone of something more purposeful. By the end of the evening, almost every piece had been spoken for.

Ptolemy’s works, which exist in the liminal space between human intuition and machine logic, are nothing if not seductive. Vast swathes of colour—sometimes raw and riotous, sometimes curiously restrained—fracture and reform in complex, seemingly spontaneous compositions. Shapes hover in uneasy proximity, layered with a depth that defies their digital origins. The surface is immaterial, yet the works possess a weight, a presence that is undeniable.

At the heart of the exhibition is a tension between control and chaos. Some pieces feel as if they have been conjured in a moment of pure, unfiltered instinct, while others bear the meticulous marks of a mind that understands exactly where to let go. Blue Fault Line, a vast panel of fractured sapphire and electric gold, draws the eye with the urgency of a storm forming on the horizon. By contrast, Untitled (Horizon Study) offers a whisper of serenity—pale washes of peach and ivory intersected by a single, wavering line.

It is easy to be cynical about the prices. The numbers whispered between guests carried a level of surrealism that even Ptolemy’s most ambitious compositions could not match. But the near-total sell-out of the show suggests that, whatever one’s reservations, these works have found their market.

The exhibition’s title, Abstract Artist For Hire, hints at the tension between art as personal expression and art as commodity. There is a self-awareness in this, but no irony. Ptolemy’s work is deeply felt, even as it acknowledges its own status as a luxury object. And in this, the exhibition is both a triumph and a challenge. Is this art made to be bought, or bought because it is art? The answer, perhaps, is already written in the red dots beside each title.

Two Days After Christmas by Ptolemy

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In Two Days After Christmas, Ptolemy Bognor-Regis offers a masterful study in abstraction, color, and emotional resonance. At first glance, the piece appears deceptively simple—a series of interlocking organic shapes rendered in earthy oranges, yellows, greens, and browns, set against an enveloping black background. Yet, beneath this simplicity lies a nuanced commentary on the post-holiday liminality, where festivity fades into reflection, and celebration gives way to contemplation.

The title situates the viewer in a specific moment, imbuing the abstract forms with an almost narrative quality. The muted palette—both warm and subdued—evokes the dimmed glow of holiday lights, waning yet still present. The green, curving contour suggests the lingering life of a pine tree, while the bright yellows, softened to amber, speak to the remnants of warmth and joy. The interplay of light and shadow within the color palette mirrors the shifting emotions of the post-holiday period—a delicate dance between nostalgia and renewal.

The compositional balance is impeccable: the forms ripple and interlock with an almost meditative rhythm, suggesting the quiet yet profound stillness that accompanies this particular time of year. The black void framing the shapes is critical, creating a stark contrast that suggests the emptiness left in the wake of celebration—a vast and quiet pause before the new year asserts itself. Bognor-Regis deftly employs this emptiness not as a lack but as a space for introspection, inviting the viewer to fill it with their own reflections.

What makes Two Days After Christmas truly remarkable is its ability to universalize a specific moment. In abstracting the emotional residue of the holiday season, the work transcends its title, becoming a meditation on transition, memory, and the quiet beauty of endings. It is an evocative reminder that even in the simplest shapes, profound truths can be found.

Untitled (Lost Hope)

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This abstract piece stands as an evocative exploration of form, colour, and spatial harmony, conjuring a dialogue that is as much about absence as it is about presence. Ptolemy skilfully manipulates an earthy palette of rusts, ochres, greens, and creams, invoking a visceral connection to the natural world. These hues are neither accidental nor arbitrary; instead, they appear deeply intentional, evoking the raw, untamed landscapes of memory or imagination.

The composition unfolds as a quasi-topographical map, suggesting terrain but eschewing specificity. The fluidity of the shapes—soft yet deliberate—creates a rhythmic interplay that oscillates between stability and motion. The sinuous orange contours bleed into softer creams and verdant greens, forming boundaries that feel at once organic and contrived. One cannot help but interpret these forms as symbolic, though their meanings remain tantalizingly out of reach. Are we observing the remnants of a distant memory, a fragmented cartography of an internal landscape, or the traces of ecological decay? The refusal of the piece to offer resolution is its ultimate strength.

Of particular note is the isolated green form—a singular moment of solidity within a sea of ambiguity. This small shape, so unassuming yet profoundly significant, serves as a focal point, a reminder of persistence amidst dissolution. It may signify growth, renewal, or merely the quiet endurance of being. The viewer is invited to meditate on its implications, lost in its magnetic simplicity.

The work thrives on its refusal to conform to expectations, forcing the audience to grapple with questions of meaning and perception. In its abstraction, it becomes both a universal canvas for interpretation and a deeply personal experience. This is a study in balance and tension, a profound testament to the power of abstraction to evoke emotion without narrative. It is both a challenge and a gift—a visual poem for the contemplative spirit.

Essie Plandell

Essie is the author of Ptolemy? Greatest abstract artist since Michelangelo? Available from all good book shops.

New work from Ptolemy Bognor-Regis III

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Untitled (Two hours stuck on a plane at Gatwick with no air-conditioning)

A good example of the well-known dictum suffering makes great art. Poor Ptolemy created this work as he sat, roasting, in a plane that had a problem with its engine. The mental anguish of flying in a machine that you have been told doesn’t work properly – how well he has captured that emotion in this piece. The colors zing and zang off each other, the central orange bespeaking the overwhelming question, viz, should I stand up and insist to be allowed off this plane. Mirrored by the lightest of greens, the universal symbol for Yes.

Brave Ptolemy stayed on the plane. The good news is they made it unscathed to Paris. That’s not as good as it sounds as they were supposed to be going to Casablanca, but out of the turmoil we have gained a modern masterpiece. Ptolemy we salute you, and – though you have sworn never to travel by plane again – we hope you make it back from Paris soon.

Untitled (Wimbledon Common from above) – New abstract work from Ptolemy

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What a fire cracker of a work! Ptolemy hits it out of the All-England Club once again with his meditation on existence and grass. “July is when I watch more tennis than any other time of the year. Of course I am primed to make art about the daily assault of grass on my eyes. The way it dies over the length of the tournament, it is heart-breaking, yet we must struggle on. In my work the grass never dies, it fights on, showing us the path and leading the way. Onward!”

Ptolemy is the only abstract artist I ever look at. Any other abstract artist is just a waste of eyeball energy.

Coca Nyula, art critic, dress designer and part-time magician

Ptolemy new canvas – An accident at Berkeley Square

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A canvas by Ptolemy created after he witnessed an accident in Berkeley Square between a taxi and a young woman. Luckily she walked away, the contents of her handbag strewn across the road. Ptolemy represents the fear, the surprise, the empathy in the searing lines of colour that cross the canvas.

An art critic writes…

Simply stunning. Unlike Gareth Southgate, with Accident in Berkeley Square Ptolemy has produced a winner. Personally this work speaks to me more than the Mona Lisa or any of those other renaissance works. Ptolemy is a modern day Michelangelo, anyone who disagrees needs to see a doctor for the head.