Ed Sheeran painting raises more than £51,000 for cancer charity

An Ed Sheeran painting has raised more than £51,000 for a local cancer charity after it was raffled off.

The 30-year-old pop star’s colourful abstract artwork, called Splash Planet, was won by someone on the east coast of the US who paid £20 for a raffle ticket.

Karen Hare, chief executive of the Cancer Campaign in Suffolk (CCiS), said she was “overwhelmed and delighted” by the support.

Sheeran previously donated another painting, Dab 2, to a charity auction, where it sold for £40,000.

The raffle for CCiS was launched last month and the winner was randomly drawn on Monday.

Ms Hare thanked Sheeran for donating the painting.

She continued: “We have been overwhelmed and delighted by the support we have been given, both here and abroad, and it’s been absolutely fantastic to know that we have raised over £51,000 through ticket sales and donations.

“I’d like to thank everyone who has helped to make this possible.

“You have been incredible.”

Sheeran said ahead of the raffle, in a video message recorded for the charity: “The painting is one of mine, one of the big splashy ones that you saw in the Afterglow cover.

“The way that you enter it is it’s going to be a raffle, it’s not going to be going for some astronomical price, you pay a small amount, enter a raffle, we pick a winner at random and then one lucky winner gets the painting.

“I hope you enter, it goes to a really fantastic cause and it’s going to help a lot of people, so thank you very much and lots of love.”

The singer-songwriter painted Splash Planet at the same time as he created Dab 2.

In a previous interview, describing how he painted them, Sheeran said: “I painted a canvas a day for 30 days.

“It was really fun. It’s kind of Jackson Pollocky.

“I bought house paint and just layered it up by flicking it. I just do my art and I love doing it.

“It’s something that makes me happy, that no-one else needs to judge.

“There’s no part of the creative process that people judge, if you’re just doing it for yourself.

“Creativity is an amazing thing to make people happy … you just do it and it’s fun.”

He worked on the paintings after his long-running Divide world tour, which ended with a series of homecoming gigs in Ipswich in 2019.

If you missed the raffle but would like to make a donation to the charity, see www.ccisuffolk.org