David Hayward

David Hayward’s paintings are primarily abstract and concerned with the qualities of colour and surface. However, memories of places and events are allowed to seep into decision-making and inform the direction that each work will take. During the Covid lockdown he produced a series of paintings based simply on two adjacent squares where juxtaposition of colour and surface play a direct role in apprehending a specific remembered experience.

He works mainly in encaustic using oil pigment dissolved in heated wax. Its opacity and malleability make it a tactile medium that tolerates considerable manipulation – acts of burying and excavating, cutting into and scraping away layers to create a visual coherence that is both subtle and complex.

David studied at the Royal College of Art; Brighton Polytechnic; Canterbury School of Art & Architecture and Cheltenham College of Art & Design. He has held professorships at the University for the Creative Arts and Canterbury Christ Church University. He now works full time in his studio in Chilham. He exhibits regularly and his work is in many private collections across the UK and overseas.