Perceptions of Letchworth Garden City and the relationship between digital images and the medium of painting are central themes at the Broadway Gallery’s next exhibition, featuring new work from prize winning British painter Dan Hays.
Running from 4 March – 11 June, The Walk to the Paradise Garden: Paintings by Dan Hays will include a series of new works that engage with Letchworth’s past and present, having been created especially for the exhibition at Broadway Gallery.
Hays paints primarily in oil, using poor quality photographs found on the internet to inform his work. For the past 15 years he has painted the landscape of rural Colorado despite never actually visiting the US state.
By contrast, Hays has visited Letchworth Garden City regularly to photograph various housing and industrial areas; the basis for several of the new paintings. This marks a change of direction for the artist, while maintaining a visual continuity with his earlier work. The new paintings in the exhibition are inspired by and named after Letchworth landmarks. For example, Curlew and Bittern (2016) depicts housing in Curlew Close and Bittern Way, photographed across fields on the edge of the town.
Laura Dennis, Visual Arts Curator, Broadway Gallery: “We’re delighted that Dan Hays, an artist of exceptional talent, will be exhibiting here at the Broadway Gallery this spring. His enthusiasm for Letchworth Garden City is reflected in the astonishing paintings that he has created of the town, which have taken him over a year to complete. We are really looking forward to now sharing them with visitors to the Gallery”.
Since graduating from Goldsmith College in 1990, Hays has exhibited nationally and internationally. He won the John Moores Painting Prize in 1997, and his work can be found in a number of collections, including the Tate.
Broadway Gallery, 2 The Arcade, Letchworth Garden City SG6 3EW www.broadway-letchworth.com. Opening hours: Wednesday – Saturday 10 am – 5 pm, Sunday 10 am – 4 pm. Admission free
