I was delighted to catch up with Dan Donovan in Nottingham this week.
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, some of his paintings are currently being exhibited at The Drawing Room Gallery in the city centre.
I’ve known Dan for almost 20 years and during that time he’s employed his creative skills as a photographer, musician and graphic designer.
He told me he has always painted but it’s only since he moved to Nottinghamshire three years ago, close to the area where he grew up, that he began to devote more time to it. And now the public is getting to see his work.
This year his paintings have been exhibited in Sheffield, Castle Donington, Kortrijk in Belgium, and now Nottingham.
Wood Land Dale, a solo exhibition, features 20 paintings inspired by the landscapes and woodlands near his current home and the ‘rolling, nostalgic vistas of his childhood in Derbyshire’.
As someone familiar with the Derbyshire Dales, where my parents lived for 40 years, I experienced more than a hint of nostalgia myself because several of Dan’s paintings reminded me of the countryside close to their home in the Peak District.
The Drawing Room Gallery is very small but it was filled with natural light and the juxtaposition of Dan’s landscapes in such an intimate space was quite striking.
The exhibition is open until November 7. Further details here. See also Dan’s website here.
See also: Tales from the Derbyshire Dales
