Artist at work

Shout out to Dan Donovan whose new art exhibition, Wood Land Dale, opened yesterday at The Drawing Room Gallery in Nottingham.

Some of you will be familiar with Dan and may even have met him at one of many Forest events where he has often been employed as the official photographer. As well as being an artist and photographer, however, he’s also an accomplished musician with multiple albums to his name, and a talented graphic designer.

In fact, since 2007 he has designed most of Forest’s campaign tools and publications including posters, t-shirts, event invitations, and reports. He also designed the current Forest logo and, frankly, I don’t know what we would have done without him.

After moving to Nottinghamshire in 2023, having spent the previous 40 years living in and around the flat Cambridgeshire fens, Dan decided to spend more time painting. The Wood Land Dale exhibition therefore features 20 landscape paintings that were inspired by the woodlands of Nottinghamshire ‘with memories of the Derbyshire countryside’ where he grew up.

The exhibition launched yesterday with a drinks reception where visitors could view the collection and meet the artist. I couldn’t go, unfortunately, but I hope to see both the exhibition and Dan before it closes on November 7.