A NEW OPTIMISM by Dan Baldwin

About

A New Optimism was conceived during the turbulent months of the Trump election campaign and serves as the artist’s stance against a darkening global mood. Coinciding as it did with the artist breaking out of his small windowless studio after ten years and moving instead to a new large sun- filled space, embracing a fresh perspective of both scale and colour. These new paintings reflect both the physical journey out from the darkness into the light and a metaphysical journey characterised by an exciting new optimism.

“We have had to adopt fast to changes in both how we see ourselves and how we are perceived by the outside world resulting in a profound shift in our universal consciousness.” Dan Baldwin

A New Optimism features for the first time paintings on raw linen using deep washes of loose colour, children in forests and landscapes. Baldwin’s dreamlike allegorical canvasses evoke ideas of nostalgia and memory, innocence and love with a colour spectrum inspired by recent travels to the Greek Island of Lefkas and time spent in Rome in autumn 2017.

Synonymous with the provocative British art scene and a contemporary of artists such as Banksy, Tracey Emin and The Chapman Brothers, Baldwin has quietly garnered a reputation to match, becoming an established figure in the art world with a global following.