Jonathan Cooper
‘Tim Hayward: Beguile’ an exhibition by appointment at Jonathan Cooper until 23 December and online at jonathancooper.co.uk
Tim Hayward at Jonathan Cooper with his piece, Quest - Lilac in the window.
Excerpts from the podcast interview with the artist, Tim Hayward.
On his career and meeting gallerist Jonathan Cooper:
I always painted as a child and drew, and after leaving school I went to art college. I trained as a graphic designer and an illustrator, and after leaving, I worked as a graphic designer for a couple of publishers and then watched a freelance illustrator come into the studios one day. He got on the train, up from Devon, with some illustrations of some flint-lock pistols, and he was greeted, taken out for a great lunch and then put back on the train and I thought, that’s the life for me, that sounds great! So, I set up to be a freelancer, it took a long time to get an agent and representation, and I then worked for about 25 years illustrating natural history books and all sorts of things. But, I actually wanted to “paint properly” and so, in 1999, I was introduced to Jonathan Cooper and we took it from there.
I had an appointment to see the owner of the gallery next to his and he was terribly nice but said he really only dealt with dead artists because they were easier and more expensive, so he suggested I go and see Jonathan, and that’s how I met him.
On composition and subject matter:
It’s very hard to see a barn owl around me although everyone else seems to see them. I thought that there was a certain mystery about them, they’re very serene, very quiet and I think also, at this time and this year, has been obviously every difficult and it just felt right to be doing something quiet and thoughtful.
Quest - Lilac, 60 x 40 inches, watercolour and gouache on paper, by Tim Hayward.
I find that I’ve been painting mostly British species and hares are an animal that hold a bit of mystique about them. And that’s why I chose it, they’re very mysterious animals and they hold a certain presence.
Brown Hare - Terre Verte, 28 x 20 inches, watercolour and gouache on paper, by Tim Hayward.
When I started with the gallery I was painting in a very traditional way. Looking at the past works of other painters and landscape featured very heavily and I really, decided to focus on the animal. And bit, by bit, I toned it [the landscape] down – it’s not being lazy, it’s not that I don’t like painting landscape, it’s just that I thought that the animal deserved the attention, and I’m not trying to recreate a photograph […] but to focus attention on that bird or animal. By having it free in the frame, I’m allowed to shape it and form it into the graphic shapes that I want to see.
Twist - Golden Rose, 41 x 60 inches, watercolour and gouache one paper, by Tim Hayward.
I see the paintings, as I’m drawing and sketching them as sort of abstracts, where I look at negative spaces as well as the animal itself. And so, if you turn it upside down, put it against a mirror or make it black-and-white, it would still work as a shape. I’m obviously concerned to get the details right but it is the overall feeling that that picture gives that I’m most concerned with initially. In fact, the most fun I get is painting the backgrounds which are now quite time consuming. They look as if I got a paint render and whacked it off in half an hour, but in fact, some of them can take a week-and-a-half to do because they’re multi-layered, wash after wash after wash of watercolour and gouache, all worked separately until I feel I’ve got the effect I want so if you’re standing close to one of these paintings, they’re not just a matte colour. You’ll see underpaintings shining through – other colours, other textures – that are not as apparent on a small photograph.
A couple of exhibitions ago, I started to choose rather unlikely colours. Almost like stained-glass window colours, and it was very effective. But what I don’t want to do is to use a colour just for the sake of it, I think it has to compliment the subject and I want to feel comfortable with it and I hope other people are comfortable with it. I’m not really in the business of challenging people too much, to say ‘wow look what I’ve got, isn’t it different?’ I mean, perhaps I should, but there’s a time for that and it is appropriate in some cases. But for the moment, maybe it’s this year, I didn’t feel like it was a bright and happy time and I thought it was what people needed, so I have put a lot of colour into the show.
See the full exhibition and listen to the podcast here.
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