Painting Pro Bono is an impartial, universally accessible project through which I maintain my studio practice and raise money for socially important causes. I do this by selling artworks for between £10 and £30 each, and donating 50% of all sales income to one of my selected charities; The Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation, Youngminds and Level Up. Painting Pro Bono has been the sole distribution method for my work since January 2020. New work is first made available to subscribers of the Painting Pro Bono emailing list (sign up here). Works not sold as a result of a mailout are made available for purchase on the Available Works page and the Editions page of this site.
I believe I have a responsibility to ensure that a materially self sustaining practice also yields at least an equal tangible contribution to society. The act of making work is essential to my happiness and provides me with a means of finding some contentment in daily life. This being the case, and given I enjoy the privilege of actually being able to devote time to it, I do not believe I have any right to demand it provide me material gain as well. Therefore, if I am to sell my work, I am principle bound to ensure that doing so is as beneficial to others as it is to me.
It is also important to me that my work is priced at a universally accessible level. I feel contemporary art is made deliberately inaccessible by the industry that purports to support it. Exclusivity and sequestered privilege abound and an arbitrary pricing “structure” cements scarcely obtainable luxury as its paradigm. I seek to resist this approach within my own practice in the following ways:
In these ways I hope to maintain a practice which is fiercely independent of the commercial art industry's normalised disfunction and deliberately divisive rapacity in all aspects.
The System
I make work available as often as I am able. Notification is by email alert to the Painting Pro Bono mailing list and by Instagram post (@t0m_wilm0tt) approximately an hour later. Unique works are priced at £30 each and editionsat £10 each.Unique works not sold through the initial mailout will be made available on the Available Works page of this site. Editions not sold out will be available on the Editions page.
Entry is open publicly as long as the work remains available.
In the case of unique works, the first person to contact me expressing interest will be considered the successful purchaser. Editions will remain available until all copies are sold. In the event of a purchaser being non-responsive for a period of 7 days, their claim to the work will be forfeit and a new purchaser will be selected.
The purchaser is required to cover costs of postage and packing. Costs within the UK are advised in the initial notification, but costs for international delivery will be calculated on a case by case basis. If a price on postage and packing cannot be agreed, a new purchaser will be selected from the remaining enquiries.
Once a P&P price is agreed I will issue an invoice, however please note that the charity donation figure will not be reflected in the final price. This is because sole traders such as myself are not permitted to claim tax relief on charitable donations or include them as business expenses and so I would be required to pay taxon this amount as it would be considered incomedespitebeing immediately donated to charity. Therefore, for the purposes of the invoice the donation sumwill be considered a voluntary overpayment. This will be explained in full every time I send an invoice.
Upon receipt of payment in full, I will make a donation of 50% of the base price of the work to the charity in question (£15 for unique works, £5 for limited edition works), and forward the receipt email I receive from the charity to the purchaser as proof of having done so.
Works will be despatched by tracked courier within 7 days of receipt of payment and full tracking information supplied upon booking. Please note I am continually adjusting and improving the way I pack my works for shipping, my end goal being to use 100% recyclable materials. Whilst I will always seek to ship works in the most economical manner, an environmentally responsible approach to packing does incur certain costs and will necessarily be reflected in the overall shipping price.
Selected Charities
Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation