No Pictures Please

The work is not previewed online. That encounter belongs to the patron and the people who come to their home or office, not the internet.

The absence is deliberate. Each work is released privately, documented properly and delivered physically. Its public image is withheld, permanently.

In the 1990s I wrote to every collector, gallery and museum holding my signed work and asked that no image of it ever appear online, even in an effort to expand awareness of me or my art. That request has held for thirty years. It holds here.

Angelo Valentino has been making and installing work in public and private spaces since 1990, often without attribution, announcement or explanation.

The works released here are not those installations. They are a private patronage mechanism: each sale funds a practice that may appear elsewhere under no name at all.

The price rises by 1.5% after each sale. This is not a discount structure. It is a public record of belief.

A large signed artwork. Private delivery or collection. Framing and a protective packing case. Paper provenance, an on-chain authenticity record, a full UK VAT invoice, future catalogue inclusion, and anonymity if wanted.

The patron may send a short note, a memory, a dream, an image, a phrase, a private association. This becomes part of the commission. The final work remains entirely at the artist's discretion.

The work is created by commitment and trust from the person who caused it to exist.

Begin a private acquisition. Payment is made and held. The work is created. The work is delivered with provenance and authenticity records.

The work is sold unseen, but not unprotected.

If the patron does not wish to keep the work, it may be returned within 30 days. The work is then withdrawn and destroyed. The purchase price is refunded, less stated production and handling costs.

“a digital pioneer”

“dark cartomancy at work”

“Standing in front of the large imposing images is an authentic experience. These days art is rarely, if ever, this affecting and, dare I say it, compelling.”

“beautiful, powerful, meaningful.”

For the patron who understands the premise, the next step is deliberately simple.