Walter Hayn

The Revival Song of the Coelacanth – Silicone rubber on canvas – (2024) 82 x 57 cm.

£2300 (Includes hand-made frame and certificate of authenticity)

The Coelacanth is often referred to as a “living fossil” because it has for millions of years remained mostly unchanged. It was thought to be extinct with only fossils showing evidence of its existence, until a live specimen was discovered off the coast of South Africa in 1938. 

I have sometimes thought how the fish and the knight emerging as they did (in my painting), out of an abstract composition, are a subconscious image of my own life, thirty years of which was lived in South Africa, and nearly thirty years since, which has been lived in England: The fish being a symbol of my African roots, and the knight a sign of my adopted English home. The song of salvation issuing from the fish, is now aligning with the lines of vision radiating from the knight, making their joint efforts more potent.

The knight and the fish have similar qualities. Both are relics of the past, but the coelacanth is a symbol of survival and hope and with its testimonial song, seems to spur the knight on in my painting.

The role of the angel who measures the new Jerusalem with a golden measuring rod in the book of Revelation intrigued me, and so I asked my (then) nine year old son to pose for a photo as the angel. Using the photographic reference I also painted the background of what was in the photo but this became more abstracted and so the space behind the angel opened up to convey a feeling of distance and the hint of a construction site. The angel’s rod has a yellow streak which suggests the golden quality of the rod in the Biblical account, but the the figure’s pose also seems to be planting a flag pole. The emboidery-like overlaying of the silicone texture draws attention to the surface of the painting, but concurrently gives the image the three-dimensional illusion of space and light. The human form of the angel is an almost transparent void with lines from the background appearing through it, but also (possibly) carrying stars in its head, as if universes from other dimensions. 

Moonswept Penge With Red Splotches – Silicone rubber on canvas – (2024) 82 x 57 cm £1450 (Sold)

With solid oak handmade frame

I imagined what might happen if a prophet of old, such as Moses or Noah, visited Penge, London – my home town. The red splotches remind one of the red car lights in time-lapse photos, (or perhaps they are the blood on door-lintels, as at the Passover) – as time slows down and a sense of eternity pauses the busyness of life.

A Portent and Lunar Eclipse – Silicone rubber on canvas – (2025) – 33.5 x 33.5 cm – Price: £550 (Includes handmade oak frame and certificate of authenticity)

A mysterious city, silhouetted at dusk, grows still as a lunar eclipse darkens the sky. At the same time a figure, or an aeroplane, silently slips through the air above. Life goes on, but something portentous has happened to transform the fabric of time.

Axis Mundi – Silicone rubber on canvas – (2024) 80 x 98 cm – Price: £2800 (SOLD)

Axis Mundi is defined by a pivotal place where Heaven and Earth meet, and here – the erstwhile resting place of Jacob who dreamed of a staircase reaching to the sky, on which angels ascended and descended – the floating, Following-Rock of Bethel, (perhaps also Jacob’s pillow), contemplates its impending incarnation at a human doorway. (For more info please read the Artway meditation “Walter Hayn: Axis Mundi” by Professor Jorella Andrews: https://www.artway.eu/posts/walter-hayn-axis-mundi )