Fanad Art

My name’s John Britton.

I’ve always been an artist.

It was my refuge through an unhappy adolescence, and my passion in the decades since.

Mainly I've worked in performance - acting, directing, improvising, teaching.

Often my work was wild, experimental, transgressive.

It took me all over the world, to many different communities and audiences.

A combination of ill-health and the pandemic caused me to pause.

Did I want to resume a hectic schedule of travel and collaboration?

The answer, clearly, was 'no'.

Always I had, when possible, painted and composed music. It was time to focus more on those quieter creativities, less on the public work of making performance.

I realised something else. However wild my performance work had been, there was a core of quietness in it. I'd often felt the deepest meaning of performance - in music, dance or theatre - was the shared moment of silence that happens at the end, when everyone, audience and artists, share a moment of arrival.

Connection and temporary community.

Movement defines stillness.

Sound defines silence.

So it is that I focus on creating moments of calm through my painting.

I am not concept-driven. I am not trying to make a grand statement. I want to create an exper...

BA English Literature (Hull University)
MA Theatre Studies (Leeds University)

As a painter - total self-education.

‘Coast’ at Fort Dunree, Donegal. Summer 2025.
Group exhibition at Garden of Reflection, Derry, Autumn 2025