Simon Chinnery

Find me on Instagram:

‘Outside the colourful life of the city, I apply colour to the canvas of life as a painter.’

I haven’t always been a painter. I did Art A level but always felt rather under the shadow of my Father who was a ‘proper’ Artist who had gone to Chelsea Art College and went on to be a creative Advertising Director. I also felt rather bowed by my genetic inheritance. George Chinnery (1774-1852) was a prolific and very successful portrait and landscape painter who spent many of his latter years in India and then China. His Father was also a painter.

So I rebelled against my genes.

Following a three year stint living in a Buddhist community I took up Ballet after seeing a film about the famous, troubled Russian dancer, Nijinsky. Music, drama and dance all in one; that did it for me. I moved from Brighton to London, got a scholarship to the Urdang Academy in Covent Garden and immersing myself in all things Artistic and hedonistic. From Monk to Punk in the twinkle of club lights. After training and touring for a bit with London City Ballet the natural next step in my life was….to work in the City.

That was twenty four years ago. Painting became part of my life again following a personal crisis that turned my world u...