Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Billy Bagilhole is a Welsh painter, tattoo artist, and filmmaker currently based in London. He visits us at Jackson’s Studio to discuss his painting practice – one deeply influenced by memories of his father’s work and by the contrast between a childhood spent in the verdant, damp landscape of North Wales and the arid terrain of Almería, Spain. His paintings present a cast of eerie characters engaged in narratives that often blend surreal humour with a sense of sorrow. Working primarily in acrylic, and often on a large scale, Billy incorporates additives such as salt and sand into his surfaces, adding an elemental quality to the work. He uses blurred, ghostly brushstrokes to evoke themes of the supernatural and nostalgia.
0:00 "A really important part of my practice is destruction"
0:17 "Self-doubt is going to be there, always use it as a tool for moving forward. It's there in your gut for a reason, something telling you the work isn't quite there yet"
0:57 “It’s like a bad relationship; I just need to spend my time away from that painting.”
1:10 Introduction
1:32 “I feel like it’s second nature to hold a paintbrush in my hand”
1:47 “When my father passed away, he didn’t leave much behind other than all of his materials”
2:28 “Growing up in rural North Wales”
2:57 “I also grew up in Almería, it was a desert landscape, it felt like I was in a cowboy film”
3:19 “Golden acrylics have quite a special place in my heart, because I was growing up and when my father passed, he left, I think, fifty tubes of Golden acrylics”
3:45 “Often I’ll mix acrylic with salt or different types of sand”
4:53 “There are these eerie figures…a lot of that is inspired by these ghostly, paranormal stories that I heard when I was young”
5:58 “It was the first time I really felt like someone took confidence in the work I was making”
7:14 “I started to, kind of, paint faces over, over, and over"
8:00 “I treated colour the same way I treated my studio, just chaos"
8:52 “I love a Payne’s Grey, I love a Mars Black, I love an Ivory Black, Bone White, anything that’s like a colour, but just a bit off”
9:42 “‘I like those socks more than that painting’”
11:17 “They said I need to elaborate on the filmmaking”
12:15 “The same face keeps cropping up in work, Edwin”
13:58 “Growing up on a dairy farm in North Wales, we were surrounded by animals”
13:22 "I delve into the thematics of light and shade quite often."
13:51 “If I could make every canvas 14ft, I would do that”
14:15 “I think having it as rugged as I can leave it"
14:41 “What if I just place a word above a painting to start with and see what that changes about an image?”
15:38 “I got a job in a kind of rough, old pub, there were a lot of funny incidents that happened there, a lot of bar fights, a lot of strange, paranormal activity"
16:37 “I started to sell work through Instagram, I decided I’m just going to give it a go and cut loose”
17:00 “Often I will make a painting, and then take aspects of the painting and turn them into tattoos”
18:05 “I love to use sketchbooks, you can make absolute rubbish in there, and it's fine”
18:19 “I’ll always have a set structure of how things could look"
19:50 “It felt like a fever dream”
21:17 “I use transparent gesso, and I use volcano sand, the stuff I collected from Iceland”
21:53 “The brushes will start really thick, and then they will just work their way down”
22:52 “I always use a white pencil to go over any drawing I do”
23:17 “I try to make as many ink drawings as I can, in an hour”
23:27 “You know a painting is right when you feel just the right amount full”
24:37 “My studio space, which is in South London, in Deptford, is an absolute pit of chaos at the moment”
25:02 “Three or four hours will pass when I am painting, when I am in the thick of it all, feeling super chaotic, and it's really hard to find things”
26:46 “I often need to have these photographs laid all over the wall in my studio when I am painting, they are kind of speaking to me a little bit in a way”
28:44 “Anyone who paints vigorously, with thick paint, and kind of splashes things around, and is ruthless with it, I tend to fall in love with”
27:17 "'To come up with an interesting idea, you’ve always got to have your rod in the water.'"
29:15 “I constantly battle with it when I am working”
29:43 Credits
Shop Art Materials: jacksonsart.com/colour/acrylic?utm_campaign=ain_-_billy_bagilhole&utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=organicsocial&utm_content=youtube_social_organic_video_to_ecom
Read the full article: jacksonsart.com/blog/2026/02/23/artist-insights-billy-bagilhole/?utm_campaign=ain_-_billy_bagilhole&utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=organicsocial&utm_content=youtube_social_organic_video_to_blog
Follow Billy on Instagram: instagram.com/billybagilhole
Music courtesy of YouTube Audio Library. The music was inspired by the songs Billy and the Jackson's Team listened to while painting during the shoot.
Billy Bagilhole is a Welsh painter, tattoo artist, and filmmaker currently based in London. He visits us at Jackson’s Studio to discuss his painting practice – one deeply influenced by memories of his father’s work and by the contrast between a childhood spent in the verdant, damp landscape of North Wales and the arid terrain of Almería, Spain. His paintings present a cast of eerie characters engaged in narratives that often blend surreal humour with a sense of sorrow. Working primarily in acrylic, and often on a large scale, Billy incorporates additives such as salt and sand into his surfaces, adding an elemental quality to the work. He uses blurred, ghostly brushstrokes to evoke themes of the supernatural and nostalgia.
0:00 "A really important part of my practice is destruction"
0:17 "Self-doubt is going to be there, always use it as a tool for moving forward. It's there in your gut for a reason, something telling you the work isn't quite there yet"
0:57 “It’s like a bad relationship; I just need to spend my time away from that painting.”
1:10 Introduction
1:32 “I feel like it’s second nature to hold a paintbrush in my hand”
1:47 “When my father passed away, he didn’t leave much behind other than all of his materials”
2:28 “Growing up in rural North Wales”
2:57 “I also grew up in Almería, it was a desert landscape, it felt like I was in a cowboy film”
3:19 “Golden acrylics have quite a special place in my heart, because I was growing up and when my father passed, he left, I think, fifty tubes of Golden acrylics”
3:45 “Often I’ll mix acrylic with salt or different types of sand”
4:53 “There are these eerie figures…a lot of that is inspired by these ghostly, paranormal stories that I heard when I was young”
5:58 “It was the first time I really felt like someone took confidence in the work I was making”
7:14 “I started to, kind of, paint faces over, over, and over"
8:00 “I treated colour the same way I treated my studio, just chaos"
8:52 “I love a Payne’s Grey, I love a Mars Black, I love an Ivory Black, Bone White, anything that’s like a colour, but just a bit off”
9:42 “‘I like those socks more than that painting’”
11:17 “They said I need to elaborate on the filmmaking”
12:15 “The same face keeps cropping up in work, Edwin”
13:58 “Growing up on a dairy farm in North Wales, we were surrounded by animals”
13:22 "I delve into the thematics of light and shade quite often."
13:51 “If I could make every canvas 14ft, I would do that”
14:15 “I think having it as rugged as I can leave it"
14:41 “What if I just place a word above a painting to start with and see what that changes about an image?”
15:38 “I got a job in a kind of rough, old pub, there were a lot of funny incidents that happened there, a lot of bar fights, a lot of strange, paranormal activity"
16:37 “I started to sell work through Instagram, I decided I’m just going to give it a go and cut loose”
17:00 “Often I will make a painting, and then take aspects of the painting and turn them into tattoos”
18:05 “I love to use sketchbooks, you can make absolute rubbish in there, and it's fine”
18:19 “I’ll always have a set structure of how things could look"
19:50 “It felt like a fever dream”
21:17 “I use transparent gesso, and I use volcano sand, the stuff I collected from Iceland”
21:53 “The brushes will start really thick, and then they will just work their way down”
22:52 “I always use a white pencil to go over any drawing I do”
23:17 “I try to make as many ink drawings as I can, in an hour”
23:27 “You know a painting is right when you feel just the right amount full”
24:37 “My studio space, which is in South London, in Deptford, is an absolute pit of chaos at the moment”
25:02 “Three or four hours will pass when I am painting, when I am in the thick of it all, feeling super chaotic, and it's really hard to find things”
26:46 “I often need to have these photographs laid all over the wall in my studio when I am painting, they are kind of speaking to me a little bit in a way”
28:44 “Anyone who paints vigorously, with thick paint, and kind of splashes things around, and is ruthless with it, I tend to fall in love with”
27:17 "'To come up with an interesting idea, you’ve always got to have your rod in the water.'"
29:15 “I constantly battle with it when I am working”
29:43 Credits
Shop Art Materials: jacksonsart.com/colour/acrylic?utm_campaign=ain_-_billy_bagilhole&utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=organicsocial&utm_content=youtube_social_organic_video_to_ecom
Read the full article: jacksonsart.com/blog/2026/02/23/artist-insights-billy-bagilhole/?utm_campaign=ain_-_billy_bagilhole&utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=organicsocial&utm_content=youtube_social_organic_video_to_blog
Follow Billy on Instagram: instagram.com/billybagilhole
Music courtesy of YouTube Audio Library. The music was inspired by the songs Billy and the Jackson's Team listened to while painting during the shoot.
