Hayward supplies high style with a memory; he induces sheer surface to have a history. By undermining the camera’s command of appearances, he helps us sense the life, the tangled motives, behind the carefully arranged appearances his sitters offer to him and to us. And in the process , he grapples with his medium as impatiently as any painter, any collagist, or indeed, any sculptor. Yet he remains calm, despite his own agitation and that of the scene he records. And with his calm comes an astonishing sympathy.
This is from the catalogue essay by Carter Ratcliff for an exhibition of my work in January 1987.
