Danny Leyland

Danny Leyland (b.1994) is an artist from Oxford, UK. His practice is led by painting, but also encompasses drawing, print-making and writing. Since graduating from the Edinburgh College of Art in 2016 (BA Painting), Leyland has exhibited internationally, in Australia, India, and the UK, with highlights including RSA New Contemporaries (2017), a solo presentation with Arusha Gallery (2020), and Edinburgh Art Festival (2021). Leyland has been a two-time awardee of the Elizabeth Greenshields Grant (2021, 2023).

 

Leyland’s paintings recall everyday scenes and experiences, depictions of the flats he has lived in, scenes from camping trips, and so on. These depictions are obfuscated and disrupted in proliferating imagery, painted in such a way as to dissolve the boundaries between things. There are moments in Leyland’s paintings that promise a sense of imminent eruption or contact, where the figures are poised as if looking at something that is about to happen. Such moments form points of slippage where visual instances of the past can occur in the present.

 

‘It is the “quietness” of commonplace dramas that interest me, for I admire paintings that are "slow”, which both invite and reward a deep and sustained inquiry by the viewer. There is an immense power in a certain restraint. In our post-religious and post-modern environment, I think you can reach a sense of the numinous or spiritual in the most prosaic encounters.’