Chris Billington is a contemporary abstractionist working from his studio in Falmouth (UK), mainly with acrylics and primarily self-taught, but also having studied abstract coastal and still life painting at The Penzance School of Art.  He is constantly inspired by Cornwall and it’s irridescent coastline. Often his sense of blueness of the sea and the ocean is evident throughout, and through his work he is trying to express, not just the environment as he sees it but also what he feels about it.  The work is his representation and interpretation of the land he grew up in and is inspirational as work derived from a sense of home and place.

We were particularly taken with his Cornish mining industry work (with which he produced a solo show of over 20 pieces).  For example, Levant, is a painting based on The Levant Mine.  Working almost continually and without interruption, in excess of 24,000 tons of tin and 130,000 tons of copper were produced during it’s 110 year life.

Levant’s main mine workings stretched along the coast in the area of St. Just in Penwith, approximately 7 miles north west of Penzance, and it reached 350 fathoms at it’s deepest level and extended way out under the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. Access to the lower levels was achieved by sinking two shafts out under the sea.  In 1919 Levant suffered a tragic mining disaster when the main-rod broke on the man-engine and of the 150 miners being brought up from below at the time more than 30 men and boys were killed and many more were seriously injured.

Levant was operational from 1820 until it’s closure in 1930. It was de-watered in the 1960′s by Geevor and was briefly worked again before passing into the care of The National Trust in 1967. It has steadily undergone a program of renovation and now features a fully working steam operated beam engine which is open to the general public on specific days.