Alicia Hayden, an award-winning wildlife artist from the UK, is using her art to increase awareness of underrepresented conservation issues
Alicia Hayden loves nothing more than using her art to talk about the natural world, whether it is illustrating children’s books about endangered African animals or highlighting environmental issues through body art. A self-trained wildlife artist, photographer, writer and filmmaker, with a background in biological sciences, Hayden wears many hats. Currently, she works at the BBC Natural History Unit in children’s TV while also freelancing as a wildlife artist and animator.
Having grown up surrounded by beautiful North Yorkshire countryside, she describes herself as “a kind of creative conservationist, a bit of a storyteller” who was drawn to the natural world from an early age. Interacting with nature in an artistic sense felt natural for Hayden and she is keen to use her art to raise awareness about underrepresented conservation issues. For instance, her artwork, When the Whale Sang, particularly focused on noise pollution and won the “Human Impact” category of David Shepherd Wildlife Artist of the Year 2021 and the Inaugural Ingrid Beazley Award.
Hayden talks to INKLINE about what inspires her artwork, the challenges of wildlife artivism, and how art can help with eco-anxiety.
INKLINE: You seem to be working on a lot of different artistic projects at the moment. What drove you to art in the first place?
Alicia Hayden: I’ve always loved art. My family was really good at giving my sister, and me the space to do what we wanted to do and to express ourselves creatively. So, I have been drawing ever since I can remember and then I got really into it in school. I loved my art teacher there, she taught me a lot up until GCSE.
While pursuing my science degree, I read about whales and noise pollution. I thought I’d illustrate it so I created this piece that was looking at this issue. It won in the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation Wildlife Artist of the Year competition’s Human Impact category. Winning really supported me because I was like ‘Oh, cool. I guess I’m okay at this’ and it also introduced my work to other people who hadn’t seen it before.
You don’t want people to look at art and just think ‘Oh, well, everything’s ruined’ so it’s about trying to find that balance.
Art is a natural form of expression for me. If I’m reading about something and I feel passionate about it, I’ll normally try and illustrate it in some way.
I: The piece you mentioned earlier, ‘When the Whale Sang’, is defined as an artivism piece. What does it mean exactly?
H: In artivism, a form of science communication, art is used to communicate science to incite a change in thought or behaviour. It’s a form of activism and it’s a form of storytelling. It can be really versatile and deeply personal.
The best artivist pieces I create tend to be ones where the core is scientific issues and I have tried to communicate it in as few images as possible. You’re trying to simplify something and make it so other people see it and have an emotional connection to it and an in-depth understanding. Scientific papers can be quite inaccessible for many people whereas art is comparatively accessible.
I: How do you decide which issues and topics you want to cover with your art?
H: Sometimes I’ve read a scientific paper and I feel passionate about it. For example, I did many pieces looking at how light pollution affects different animals because that was just something I was interested in at the time.
When I read about endangered species, I look it up and try and understand a bit more about it. Occasionally I have a dream about an idea and I’ll wake up and I’ve got a piece in my head! But I think the most recent pieces that I’ve been working on had more of a personal connection.
I: What would you say is the most challenging thing about artivisim?
H: It can be difficult to work out how to visualise things sometimes. I think some of the hardest things that come with artivism is it’s really easy to sort of either overcomplicate it or make it too broad so it’s not obvious what the piece is about.
It can be challenging to create art that people feel connected to without feeling put off or demotivated. You don’t want people to look at art and just think ‘Oh, well, everything’s ruined’ so it’s about trying to find that balance.
I: Do you think art can help people cope with feelings of eco-anxiety? If so, how?
H: Art can be calming for many people. It’s something that people can enjoy. Almost everybody interacts with art in some form, not necessarily fine art, but music, film or theatre. Even cave paintings had wildlife art in them and so it’s quite a primitive thing.
The biggest things are determination and perseverance, but also loving your own work and having that self-respect and passion.
Art can be such a form of joy but also brings people together. Even if the art piece perhaps wasn’t the happiest, for example, one of my pieces was looking at shark finning, it starts a conversation.
I: Could you tell us who are some of your favourite wildlife artivists?
H: Martin Aveling, a wildlife artist and an artivist who founded the wildlife artivism movement. His piece of a tiger turning into a barcode is what introduced me to wildlife artivism!
Tichaona Ncube, a Zimbabwean artist and his use of colour and experimentation has been very influential for me. (Hayden went to Zimbabwe to meet Tichaona as part of her project The Watchman). He sees things differently and I love that. It was such a privilege to watch him work. His use of colour gave me the confidence to mess around with that a lot more.
I also really like Dominique Vassie’s work. She is also a scientist and works with a range of things such as gouache, pencil as well as pen art. She’ll look at the natural world and she’ll create creatures and I think that’s amazing because that is just a different level of thinking!
I: Any words of advice for young people who want to become professional wildlife artists?
H: The biggest things are determination and perseverance, but also loving your own work and having that self-respect and passion. It’s really hard to get art to go places and get people to notice you. I’m still something on it. You have to be quite consistent with what you’re doing because it will take a while and it is not something that happens overnight.
Talk to people and build a community. I talk to people all the time if I ever have questions because it can be quite lonely. When I was trying to build up my portfolio, I would reach out to artists and I’d ask them how they did theirs. It might take a little while for them to reply sometimes because you’re never the only person contacting someone.
Featured image by Alicia Hayden.
Julia Migné is a multimedia journalist and wildlife photographer specialising in environmental issues and odd hobbies. She has written for Africa Geographic and BBC Wildlife among others. An endless traveller, she swears that she would visit one country for each letter of the alphabet.