My name is Diana Hayward and I live in Cambridge. I am a Scottish artist painting abstracts, landscapes and seascapes in acrylics and oils.
My paintings are often inspired by Cambridgeshire and Scottish landscapes. Many of my seascapes are of the glorious beaches in Cornwall and of those on the Islands of Mull and Iona.
I use painting knives in preference to brushes and work with heavy body acrylics and oils. My style is loose. I often use a more limited palette to give freshness.
I really enjoy abstract work and my preference is for medium to large scale paintings on box canvases.
My childhood was spent in Scotland where I was exposed to the work of the ‘Scottish Colourists’ – Peploe, Cadell, Fergusson and Hunter, as well as Norman Edgar and George Devlin. I was greatly influenced by the way their use of colour and fluid painting styles manage to fill a room with light.
I didn’t paint regularly until I was 30. Our car broke down at a remote beach on a far flung Scottish Island. It was a glorious spring day and after spending 8 hours looking at the sky, silver sands and turquoise water, I simply had to recreate the scene myself.
Paintings are so much more than simple images. They are responses to emotions, memories, places and meetings. They have soul and should resonate.
In 2002, I started exhibiting in galleries mainly in and around Glasgow (as Diana Thomson). I had great success and quickly became the Park Gallery’s top-selling originals artist with paintings selling for ~£1000.
I have exhibited in Cambridge, Edinburgh, in London, and at many galleries and art fairs in the Glasgow area, as well as at the Paisley Art Institute, and in the East of England. I have paintings in private collections in Europe and Asia.
LIST OF GALLERIES
Church Street Gallery, Saffron Walden, Essex
Cambridge Contemporary Art, Cambridge
Lawson Gallery, Cambridge
Park Gallery, Glasgow
Gatehouse Gallery, Glasgow
Inverbeg Gallery, Balloch
Annan Gallery, Glasgow
Framework Gallery, Troon
Off the Wall, Ayr
Deju Art, Crossford, Lanarkshire
South side Gallery, Glasgow
Education:
I come from a family of artists and am mainly self-taught, learning through direct practice and observation.
Art courses:
Cornwall-St. Ives School of Painting- printing inspired by Barbara Hepworth.
Cambridge -ceramics, sculpture and printed fabric design. I am currently learning upholstery so that I can upholster furniture using fabric of my own design.
Glasgow – black and white photography