Throughout the summer, the third floor of our Walton Street store will host a curated selection of Isabelle Hayman’s work. We recently visited Isabelle’s studio to discover more about her inspiration and practice.
Isabelle Hayman is a French artist based in South London, where she works from her studio in Wandsworth. Her practice is richly layered and deliberately fluid, spanning ink on paper, oil painting, mixed media, embroidery, textiles, collage and hand drawn works on vintage plates. Rather than settling into a single medium, Isabelle allows each to inform the next, creating a body of work that feels both intuitive and deeply considered.
Textiles sit at the heart of her visual language. Originally trained as a print textile designer, Isabelle’s early grounding in decorative arts, pattern and ceramics continues to shape her approach today. Vintage books on decorative arts, old maps, diaries, notebooks and fabrics gathered over the years form a personal archive that feeds directly into her work.
A typical day in Isabelle’s world begins with ritual and discipline. A committed cold-water swimmer, she starts each morning with a swim in an unheated pool all year round. It is, she says, the clearest way to reset her mind before arriving at the studio. From there the pace and physicality of the day depend on the work at hand. Painting fills the space with open tubes of colour, improvised palettes made from old packaging, and paint stained rags; she works standing, moving bodily around the canvas. Drawing, by contrast, requires a slower rhythm, seated at a table. Her dancer drawings are spontaneous and expressive, created with sweeping strokes and fluid movement, while her large botanical ink works are carefully planned, with iconography and composition mapped out in advance.
Process is central to Isabelle’s practice. She works from sketchbooks - Portuguese notebooks she carries while travelling, A5 books filled with Japanese felt pen drawings, and Indian sketchbooks brought to her by a friend. These become points of return when she begins a new piece, guiding composition and mood. Larger sketchbooks are dedicated to collage, both as finished images and as repositories of shapes and motifs. Isabelle often alternates between intense, detailed work and bursts of spontaneity, allowing one to refresh the other. Ideas evolve continuously as she adds, removes and adjusts colour, searching for balance. The making does not stop at the studio door; it unfolds gradually, shaped by observation and reflection until the work feels resolved.
She describes her work as a collection of stories, told at different scales and through varied techniques. Some unfold in large, layered paintings or intricate ink drawings; others are quieter, taking form on paper or through the playful application of fabric and motif onto reclaimed plates. Strong colours, bold patterns and graphic shapes recur throughout, creating a visual coherence across media.
What's next?
Looking ahead, Isabelle is beginning a new series inspired by a recent trip to Puglia. A visit to the Museo Sigismondo Castromediano in Lecce, with its collection of Greek and Apulian antique vases, has sparked ideas for a body of ink drawings based on the strong, graphic forms of krater volutes. As ever, the work continues - shaped by travel, material and a lifelong devotion to pattern.