05/09/2026
A bit of a sad day for me today, as I have to go back to what was the Wallington Gallery to collect several of my paintings that had been on display there.
The gallery holds quite a few memories for me. I was fortunate enough to sell a number of my shipyard and mining paintings there, and it was always incredibly satisfying to see people connecting with work that meant so much to me personally. A gallery isn't simply a shop with paintings on the walls; it provides artists with an opportunity to be seen, to meet an audience and, ultimately, to make a living from what they create.
Sadly, the Wallington Gallery is now another casualty of what I can only describe as the continuing “cost of greed” crisis. And it isn't an isolated case. Small independent galleries and creative businesses across the country are facing an incredibly difficult financial climate.
The commercial art world has been squeezed from almost every direction. The cost of running premises has risen, along with rents, rates, insurance, energy, materials, framing, transport and everything else involved in exhibiting and selling artwork. At the same time, artists are dealing with rising material and studio costs while many people's disposable incomes have been squeezed, inevitably making buying original artwork a much harder decision. The visual arts sector itself has warned that artists' incomes have declined significantly while studio rents, materials and other costs have increased.
And that creates a vicious circle.
Galleries need customers to survive. Artists need galleries to reach customers. But when people have less money to spend and the costs of keeping a gallery open continue to rise, the small independent galleries are often the ones caught in the middle. Once a gallery closes, it's not simply a business disappearing from the high street — it's another place where artists can exhibit, another opportunity for emerging talent, and another piece of the cultural character of a community disappearing.
There is also a danger that art becomes something increasingly accessible only to those who can afford it. If we lose the small galleries, artist-led spaces and affordable creative opportunities, we risk losing the diversity and individuality that makes the British art scene so interesting in the first place. Recent calls from major visual arts organisations have highlighted precisely these concerns, warning that rising costs, falling resources and reduced opportunities are making it increasingly difficult for artists to sustain careers.
It's particularly sad for me because I know that many of my own paintings found homes through the Wallington Gallery. So today feels like the end of a little chapter.
I'd like to wish Brian and Angie all the very best for the future and thank them for giving artists like myself a platform and an opportunity to show and sell our work.
The closure of another independent gallery may seem like a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but multiply it across the country and the picture becomes much more worrying.
We need to remember that art isn't an unnecessary luxury. Artists, galleries and creative businesses contribute to the character, identity and economic life of our towns and communities. When they disappear, something valuable disappears with them.
So, goodbye to the Wallington Gallery — and thank you for the memories, the exhibitions, the conversations, and for giving my paintings a home.
Here's hoping the future is kinder to artists and the people brave enough to give us somewhere to put our paintings. 🎨
AJH
