Artworks respond to the turbulent months of the Trump election campaign

Coinciding as it did with Baldwin's breaking out of his small windowless studio after 10 years and moving instead to a new large sun-filled space, embracing a fresh perspective of both scale and colour, his new paintings reflect both the physical journey out from the darkness into the light and a metaphysical journey characterised by an exciting new optimism.

He explains: “We have had to adapt fast to changes in both how we see ourselves and how we are perceived by the outside world resulting in a profound shift in our universal consciousness.”

The exhibition features paintings on raw linen using deep washes of loose colour, children in forests and landscapes. Baldwin’s dreamlike allegorical canvasses evoke ideas of nostalgia and memory, innocence and love with a colour spectrum inspired by recent travels to the Greek Island of Lefkas and time spent in Rome in autumn 2017.

A New Optimism, the latest work by British artist Dan Baldwin, opens at Maddox Gallery, Westbourne Grove on 16 March 2018. For more information visit maddoxgallery.co.uk.