Jay Fortune’s first artistic act took place at the age of three when he drew directly onto the family staircase with a biro. The ‘exhibition’ ran for approximately five steps before being shut down by management (his mum). Some have suggested this early intervention prevented a second Banksy (although, this is not supported by evidence).
At school he held his first solo exhibition of portraiture and won a national competition to design a rainforest protection poster. His work was reproduced for the campaign and displayed across protected areas of the Amazon. He is still waiting for the land rights.
Jay graduated with a degree in Art and then promptly stepped away from painting to pursue another discipline that had captured his imagination: magic.
For nearly two decades he worked as a full-time professional magician. He secured national contracts, built agency relationships and performed at major venues across the world. He entertained leading corporate brands, head offices and international events. Alongside performing, he founded and grew an entertainment agency supplying acts to festivals, tours and large-scale productions.
He managed touring performers, co-wrote and produced stage shows and consulted on television magic programming. He hosted radio, developed creative seminars and produced immersive live experiences at scale. The work was varied, ambitious and relentless.
A health scare in 2008 forced a recalibration. His pace shifted. International travel ceased and the stage still called, but his creative direction slowly began to change.
In 2018, after thousands of performances including solo shows in Las Vegas, Edinburgh and London, Jay chose to retire from touring. The decision was deliberate.
He returned to painting.
What started at the drawing board soon evolved into a focused body of portrait work documenting figures who have shaped the art of magic. His portraits are now held in private collections worldwide and have been exhibited at The Magic Castle in Hollywood. He collaborates with recognised performers to produce official portraits.
That same instinct to build, perform and document now continues through the Jay Fortune Conjuring Archive, an ongoing series of portrait editions dedicated to significant figures in modern conjuring.
The showman did not disappear… he simply changed mediums.
Those who wish to support the continued development of the Archive may do so through patronage.
My greatest magic trick: Overcoming adversity, transforming pain into paint. Why I paint and write.
‘Paint your wounds gold.’—This is a metaphorical expression inspired by the Japanese art of Kintsugi, which means ‘golden joinery’. In Kintsugi, broken pottery is repaired using powdered gold, highlighting the cracks rather than hiding them. The intention is that the breakage becomes part of the history and beauty of the object, not something to be ashamed of.
My greatest magic trick has not been performed on a stage but learning how to live inside a body that began out of alignment.
I was born with talipes or ‘club foot’. In the late 1970s the solution was plaster casts. While the intention was good, the result was imbalance. This meant that as I grew, my hips, spine and neck compensated, making pain a constant background noise. Some days it was louder than others. Walking, sitting and, at times, even breathing could hurt.
As a child I found relief in imagination. I discovered early on that if I could turn an idea into something real, even briefly, I could escape the discomfort. Magic, art and books became my refuge in solitude. Socially, comedy followed that. Making people laugh created a strange internal equation, whereby if I could generate joy, then perhaps I could outrun pain, effectively making it vanish.
In my late teens another challenge arrived. Severe cluster headaches began (although, the word ‘headache’ does not do justice to the experience). They were sudden, powerful and totally debilitating. Doctors searched for causes as, once again, I searched for ways to endure this new pain.
Outwardly my life looked energetic: I built a full-time career as a professional magician and travelled constantly. I filled diaries with stories and adventures, living my childhood dream performing, producing, managing acts and always creating. For me, staying busy felt safer than being still. I came to realise the mask of performance was not one of deception but survival.
In 2008 my lung collapsed when performing on a luxury cruise, after years of relentless travel. According to the doctors I should not have survived the flight home. International work stopped overnight and my future plans quickly dissolved. With sheer determination, I rebuilt in the UK and continued performing but instinctively felt that something deeper had shifted.
By 2015 the strain caught up with me. My anxiety intensified and depression followed. There were moments on quiet roads when continuing felt heavier than stopping. That period forced a reckoning, one that I could not stage-manage.
Instead of being outgoing, isolation became my coping mechanism.
With the love of my partner, my family and close friends, and through years of therapy and study, I began to understand that performance had been both passion and protection. The mask that once empowered me had begun to crack. It was not a dramatic public performance, more a private yet necessary transition.
I like to think of it that retiring from the stage was not a collapse but a recalibration.
So, I returned to painting after nearly twenty years away from the canvas. It felt like ‘coming home’ and greeting a part of myself that had been left waiting patiently in the wings. Soon after, a return to writing followed. Both offered something performance no longer could: stillness and the control of pace. The ability to work from depth rather than adrenaline. This was a creative and powerful shift from outward energy to inward focus.
Today, chronic pain remains. But so does discipline and gratitude. I practice many daily rituals to help live with pain (and creativity helps even more!).
What fascinates me is my creative output today reflects this inner world. When I reflect on how my portraits of magicians are studies in identity without disguise. Likewise, my novels explore perception because I have lived inside distorted versions of it. My essays on building dreams come from having dismantled and rebuilt my own.
I came to understand that turning pain into paint is not metaphor for me but method.
This is why I paint.
This is why I write.
Today, that work continues through the Jay Fortune Conjuring Archive, a considered body of portrait editions documenting figures who shaped the art I once performed. The same discipline that carried me through stage lights and recovery now informs my work in the studio.
Those who wish to follow the archive as it develops may request inclusion in the Collector Circle.
