Q&A with David Hayward
David Hayward is one of our much loved and sought after artists at KMA. His visceral, tactile and sumptuous paintings hold a depth of meaning. He considers himself to be an abstract painter, despite his use of bright and opulent colours conveying sunsets and many elements of land and waterscapes that inspire him. I was intrigued to know more about David and his art, so please read our interview below. I hope you find what he does as exciting as I do.
Why are you an artist?
I'm not entirely sure. It just happened. My school was predominantly science biased, and I was the only one doing A-level Art. Going off to Art College seemed irresistible.
Describe a typical day in your studio?
In the morning I waste as much time as possible doing what I call admin. That's drinking coffee, reading yesterday's paper, answering emails etc. I finally head to the studio around 11 am. It's a five-minute walk through our village via the graveyard. The studio is surrounded on two sides by gravestones and on two sides by huge trees - it's a lovely spot.
The first thing I do is to put on my overalls, switch on all the lights and look at the two or three works that are in progress. Depending on what I'm doing and my mood, I may play music, listen to radio 4 or work in complete silence. I eat a packed lunch at around 1 pm and then work uninterrupted till 6 pm - on average, I put in a six-hour day, four days a week.
On good days I know exactly what I need to get on with - on bad days I sit and cogitate. Some days I work fast and trust my judgements, but on others, I am overwhelmed with too much choice and find decision making hard. Interestingly, a sluggish day can be saved by a really productive final hour, when built-up frustration and creative inhibition can suddenly transform into reckless action that can revitalise a stubborn painting.
At the end of the day after cleaning up, I'll take one last, long look at what I've done and hope I'll like it when I return the following morning.
You spent many years in academia, tell us how you balanced your creativity during this time.
It was challenging. Most of my creativity seemed to be by proxy - designing projects, developing courses, writing papers (all of which, in their own ways are creative). During long, dull meetings, I used to doodle ideas for paintings on the back of agendas. I would paint at weekends and holidays, but it was always very difficult to generate any real momentum.
David Hayward : Rockpool
Tell us more about the encaustic process and how it plays into your subject matter?
Encaustic is an ancient and very permanent medium in which pigment is dissolved in heated beeswax. I use a variety of electric pans as heated palettes. Because the wax cools and sets almost immediately, it allows more layers to be applied without waiting for the underpainting to dry. If necessary, a hot air gun can be used to soften the surface, and various tools can be employed to cut into and scrape away layers to reveal details of underpainting. Encaustic stays malleable for a while before the oil paint cures and the surface hardens.
Tell us why you settled on the encaustic process as your primary artistic technique.
Encaustic is a process that suits my rather impatient nature as it sets fast and allows me to work quickly. Its opacity and malleability make it a forgiving medium that tolerates considerable surface change. I enjoy the painterly acts of burying and excavating, cutting into and scraping away layers to reveal unexpected details of underpainting.
Describe your starting point when you are creating a new body of work.
A set of paintings will often begin with an idea of a place - for example, the fossil coast around Lyme Regis or the tidal reaches of the Thames Estuary. However, the references will be more about unseen physical structures (geological and archaeological), and to transient atmospherics (weather and sounds), rather than to topographical appearance.
I never know what the final image will look like - each painting is loosely planned to prompt the accidental and unforeseen. Still, as each piece progresses, ideas, sketchbooks and memories will inform the decision making and determine the direction the painting will take.
Do you work in sketchbooks?
Yes, over the years, I have filled dozens of sketchbooks. Drawing is a wonderful way of engaging with the world and, along with annotations, sketchbooks are a very effective way of holding on to memories. Interestingly most of my landscape drawings engage with issues of distance whereas, in my paintings, spacial implications are largely avoided. I rarely use sketchbooks as a direct precursor to painting, but, in the studio, I often make drawings from earlier drawings using ink on large sheets of layout paper. It's at this stage that ideas can transfer into painting.
When do you know a painting is complete?
I suppose the real answer is that one never knows. Some paintings can resolve themselves far more quickly than expected, while others can become long-term battles. I think all one can do is stay alert for that moment when everything holds together with some element of visual integrity. The biggest danger for me is not trusting an outcome that arrived quickly and easily and then overworking it and losing its earlier energy.
Do you ever return to rework pieces and if so, why?
Yes, I quite like returning to pieces that have been set aside. You see them in a new light and see possibilities that didn't occur to you first time around.
Your paintings focus on land and waterscapes. Do you have a favourite place that you like to visit regularly?
I particularly like estuaries, tidal mudflats and marshes - they are enigmatic places, both optically and emotionally. I like the liminal delineations of air, water and land and the transience of light and tides - they lend themselves to abstraction. I live close to the north Kent seashore which is really the mouth of Thames Estuary looking towards the Isle of Sheppey and the Essex coast - as Turner discovered, it has great light.
What continues to inspire you?
Despite the references to landscape, I consider myself an abstract painter. So what really makes me go into the studio each day is the physical work of mixing colour, manipulating surface qualities and the constant nudging of the component parts of a painting into some kind of visual coherence.
Who do you admire most?
The painters I never tire of are Cranach the Elder for his weirdness; Bruegel the Elder for his observation; Piero della Francesca and Vermeer for their compositional precision, Velázquez and Manet for sheer poise and honesty. To make up my Desert Island top 10, I'd add Georges Braque, Mark Rothko; Robert Motherwell and Sean Scully (though of course, these choices would be continually in flux).
How do you overcome any creative blocks?
We all (perhaps with exceptions like Picasso) get creative blocks - they can last for a day or can seem to go on for weeks - all one can do is keep working - in the end it's work that will resolve things.
Tell us about your proudest artistic achievement
In 1965 I won a prize in the Brook Bond Tea National Schools Art Competition - I was presented with "How to Paint Landscapes and Seascapes" signed by the author and TV artist Adrian Hill. (I won it again in 1967 and got his "The Beginner's Book of Watercolour Painting").
Do you have any other passions outside of art?
Definitely cooking. I enjoy the process of selecting, preparing, heating and stirring ingredients and balancing consistency and intensity - just like encaustic painting.
When was the last time you visited an exhibition and who did you see?
I managed to catch the Alan Davie and David Hockney exhibition at the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne just before the gallery closed because of Covid-19. It was a really interesting show that made me appreciate the links between the two painters.