In his role as Festival Artist Gino has been drawing and painting the authors who come to the Buckingham Literary Festival. The portraits create a living archive of both the activities of authors and the role of the Literary Festival in connecting authors with readers. Language and voices interest Gino and the archive illicits the nature of communication, diverse, complex and cultural.

The authors Gino Has drawn to date include:

(2025)

(2024)

(2023)

(2022) Alison Weir, Cath Howe, Christina Lamb, Ed Stourton, Emma Smith, Flora Fraser, Flora Rees Harry Baker, Iain Daie, Jonathan Sumption, Kenan Malik, Matt Stadlen, Mini Grey, Sam Fowles, Vanessa Horton, Violet Moller, Will Gompertz, Will Shakespeare, Yaw Asiyama, Gino Ballantyne -self portrait

2019 Authors: Adrian Wooldridge, Alison Baverstock, Annabel Leventon, Annabelle Dowler, Charles Cumming, Charles Ellingworth, Christopher lee, Conn Iggulden, Elif Shafak, Euan Cameron, Fanny Blake, Filipe Fernandez-Armesto, Georgina Godwin, Jane Wenham-Jones, Julie Summers, Kathy Slack, Leslie Cavendish, Local Authors Hub, Louis De Bernieres, Luke Jennings, Maggie Gee, Mathew Stadlen, Nick Hewer, Omar Meziane, Sir Anthony Seldon, Sunny Ormonde, Susannah Stapleton,Terry Waite, The Archers, Victoria Hislop, Violet Moller 

(2018) Frederick Forsyth, Rebecca Fraser, Tim Marshall, Edward Stourton, Tom Bower, Jasper Winn, Anthony Seldon, William Sitwell, Natasha O'Hear & Anthony O'Hear, Antonia Fraser, Ben Okri, Mark Billingham, Belinda Bauer, John Dougherty, Chris Patten, John Bercow, Craig Brown, Andrew Adonis, Keri Davies, Timothy Bentinck, Jane Wenham-Jones, Blanche Girouard, Griselda Heppel, Mark Lawson, MG Leonard, Frances Welch, Emma Byrne, Castle Theatre Company.

(2017) Roger McGough, Raymond Tallis, Anthony Seldon, Peter James,

Below is a selection of the drawings and exhibitions Gino has presented in the Vinson Building, during his time with the festival. Gino released his publication "The Waste Land - A Collapsing World" in 2022 an oversized artists book celebrating the centenary of TS Eliot's poem the Waste Land.

To celebrate the story of The Buckingham Literary Festival and the wonderful authors who have come over the years Gino has been visually documenting the festival. This year an exhibition of the drawings and paintings he made will be shown in an exhibition "A Visual Diary" in The Vinson Building, University of Buckingham between 16th and 18th June   

The Literary Festival also presents in the Vinson Building Gino's installation "Resurrection" creating a conversation and collaboration with Buckingham Parish Church where Gino's exhibition of paintings "The Thunder Speaks" is on, in the Chancel at Buckingham Parish Church, St Peter and St Paul, Buckingham, June 15th - 30th June.

"A Visual Diary"

Gino Ballantyne

The Buckingham Literary Festival

The Vinson Building

University of Buckingham

16th - 18th June

A visual Diary of the Festival containing a selection of drawings by Gino was published in November 2020 to recognise the festivals enormous acheivements before its temporary closure due to the Covid pandemic.

The Waste Land - A Collapsing World

Faber celebrates the centenary of The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot. Originally published in 1922, T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land was the most revolutionary poem of its time, offering a devastating vision of modern civilisation. To mark the centenary in 2022, Faber invites artistic responses. To mark the occasion artist Gino Ballantyne has produced a selection of events, exhibitions and two publications of Eliot’s poem creating a dialogue between Eliot’s world in 1922 and Gino’s world today. 

A digital book published at The Buckingham Literary Festival 2022. The digital book serves as both an introduction and translator to Gino's one-of-a-kind illustrated artist’s book subsequently released on the same date as TS Eliot's book edition by Boni and Liveright published in December 1922. 

This artist’s book is a network of communication combining drawn images, abstracted soundscapes and textual, binary, hexadecimal languages. The Waste Land and the Collapsing World by Gino seek the universal meaning of life, in a fragmented world where time and civilisation are collapsible.

During the festival Gino installed an interactive exhibition in The Vinson Building at Buckingham University, June 2022. Gino created an interactive Binary Wall in collaboration with the School of Computing led by Professor Harin Sellahewa, Dean of Computing at Buckingham University. ‘A powerful visual response to Eliot’s poem, Gino explores a collapsing world where our habits and notions of identity, reality and truth symbolise our disconnect with civilisation, the natural world and human consciousness.’ Vivienne Wordley.

The Waste Land - A Collapsing World



Castle Theatre Company, Old Mill House, Maids Moreton

Castle Theatre Company, Love's Labour's Lost, Old Mill HouseMaids Moreton