An open sketchbook spread: a softly drawn room and bicycle on the left, and a seated man holding a bicycle wheel on the right
“James (Jimmy) Connelly is the art world’s Rumpelstiltskin, spinning treasures with the twirl of a paintbrush from mere pigment and canvas.”

— Kenny Schachter, Little Treasures,

Read texts

A considered selection

Paintings

A blue-toned painting with two dark figures below a large round form and pale floating forms around them

A story you can enter

Painting Adventures

Step inside a painting. Choose what happens next.

A five-part branching story created from Jimmy Connelly’s paintings, delivered weekly by email. Each choice changes the path—and what arrives next.

Discover Painting Adventures

First adventure coming soon.

A blue-and-brown drawing of people around a collapsing house of cards, with the words wake up behind them

Project

Better Than Christmas

A project made from people’s wishes: 110 answers gathered in Whitstable, interpreted by artists as 58 works.

Explore the project →
See the paintings archive Next: the recovered Blog

Blog · 2007–2008 / 2026–

I found my old Blog.

I got completely absorbed in making this Blog nearly twenty years ago. It was full of paintings, writing, charcoal drawings and small animations. Then life took over. Finding it again and beginning it again has made me feel unexpectedly young and excited.

Tap the sleeping figure to wake it.

Recovered from “Please help me to get some work done!”, 9 February 2008. Original image pair; modern accessible controls.
2007–200886 recovered posts
life took over
2026–The Blog continues
Enter the Blog — 86 recovered posts, 2007–2008

A Brush with Fantasy · Amanita, New York · 2023

A hundred small paintings, seen together.

A long view through Amanita Gallery with small paintings installed in a continuous line along both walls
Installation view. This photograph documents the exhibition; it is not an individual painting.
Next: about Jimmy

still painting — and still getting distracted

There is more here than fits on one page. The archive will keep growing as the evidence is reviewed and new work is made.

About Jimmy ↗ Get in touch ↗