About David Hinchliffe
My background
I trained as a fine artist at Manchester College of Art and completed a masters degree at the Royal College of Art. I had a career teaching art and design in secondary education, and as an adviser on art and design education in local authorities and nationally. This led to me receiving an OBE for services to education. I have worked full time as an artist for the last 16 years.
The subject matter for my work is usually based on the local environment but has also included specific commissions over the years. All my work is based on first hand observation, interpretation and memory. I do use photographs where necessary, and I draw to gather information or to explore an idea, which can later be used as the basis of a larger work.
My process
For me, painting is a process of discovery, sorting out ideas and exploring them. Much of what I do is related to creating a sense of place, through the manipulation of images, space, shape and colour. In all my paintings I attempt to keep everything provisional, fluid, and needing revision and alteration for as long as I can. This allows my doubts and revisions to become a part of the subject of the picture, and my mental processes to be incorporated. Michael Andrews, one of my favourite artists, said it best when he described painting as “the most marvellous, elaborate, complete way of making up my mind.”
Generally I prefer to work in oils and acrylic on canvas, but drawings tend to be carried out on paper in a wide range of materials including gouache, charcoal, pastels and ink. Even when my choices have been made and the picture is in my mind ‘complete,’ the aim is not only to represent my subject matter, but also to show the process I have gone through in reaching it.
“Painting is the most marvellous, elaborate, complete
Michael Andrews
way of making up my mind.”