Darrell Hawkins

Darrell Hawkins is a painter, musician and maker born in Chatham and based in Medway, Kent. He studied at the Kent Institute of Art and Design, now part of UCA, and graduated from the University of Brighton.

His visual practice brings abstract and figurative elements into densely layered compositions that feel part image and part signal: high-energy accumulations of colour, characters, symbols and pop-cultural reference.

His work has been exhibited at solo and group shows at the Saatchi Gallery and held a residency as part of Frieze Art Fair at the Hyatt Regency London. He has undertaken public art commissions such as ‘Strood Welcomes You’ in which Hawkins produced a 600 x 300 cm digital painting printed on aluminium for Strood town centre. Alongside painting, he made music under the moniker Sonic Hawkins and signed to Accidental Records, played with Medway-based band The Sleepers and was part of London post-punk band Wild Palms, releasing two albums through One Little Independent Records.

This movement between visual art, music and public space gives his work a fast, rhythmic and contemporary quality. For Art on the Delta, Hawkins brings a vivid visual language rooted in Medway and specifically the Cathedral without resorting to nostalgia, connecting painting with the energy of music, street-level image culture and shared sacred-civic space.

Check out his website here: https://www.darrellhawkins.art/