About –
How Hatty Paints The World Beautiful
Interview with Nick Scott, May 2021
A graduate of Central Saint Martin’s London who did stints as a fashion stylist and a photographer before returning to illustration, she doesn’t see art as her job: it’s her raison d'être and her life force “What do I do if I have a creative block? Climb over it!” she laughs at one point.
Hatty in studio
The whimsical studio space around which Hatty Pedder, in typically buoyant form, gives me a Zoom tour one rather dank weekday afternoon in early May is not so much a dwelling as a creative laboratory. Right beside her in the field of her phone lens’s glare is a bright red statue of a parakeet: “A very special friend gave me this, and it’s used as a prop in various editorials and insta set ups - it’s travelled around with me,” she says, which very much explains the elegantly ornithological quality her human subjects so often have.
Hatty's studio is an evolving, living space, every piece of paraphernalia has a rich narrative behind it. Over here, a sketch she did for a Dior event “I wanted to capture the contrast between the Amazonian models and the petiteness of the people dressing and grooming them,” she says; over there, a piece for a sheik’s VIP box at the Dubai World Cup “It reflects the mixture of cultures and high fashion and opulence and glamour of Dubai.”; another short step away, a lovingly-etched portrayal of her late husband surrounded by his music paraphernalia.
Elsewhere, busts, illustrated butterflies, paper sculptures, antiques and an abundance of joyfully created ink splatters “I use a lot of splatters and splodges!” all testify, in a glorious cacophony, to the personality, whimsy, technical talent and eclectic influences (from the art nouveau of Aubrey Beardsley to the epic, detailed panoramas of William Frith) which combine to make up Hatty Pedder’s extraordinary and unique approach to visual reportage.
Branding, editorial, advertising, books and interior art are all in Hatty Pedder’s remit, with Cartier, Tiffany’s, Lanvin, Mini Cooper, Snapple, Harper's Baazar, pop up companies and a wealth of hotel chains all having called upon her services.
There’s even an entire guest room dedicated to her work at Auberge de Temple, a boutique hotel and art space in Germany. “You incorporate their branding and core messages through a subtle story telling illustration.”
“I love capturing the whole scene, the excitement, at shows,” Hatty says of her work live drawing and painting at events, including many art and fashion shindigs. Guests at events thrown by Maserati and Bvlgari, as well as Cartier, are among those to have taken home a stunning personalised gift thanks to her quirky spontaneity, vibrant palette - and, indeed, ability to work at a rate of knots when the occasion requires it.
At such events, liberated by not being able to plan and plot at leisure, Pedder operates more like a noodling jazz supremo than concert pianist. “I find the live drawings really relaxing - almost like going into a zone. There’s a lot of spontaneity. I just let lots of things happen. I always find quirky ways of getting it all tied together. I've been incredibly blessed to have had these wonderful opportunities.”
She’s recently ventured into corporate graphic facilitation - providing visual cues in business meetings to prompt dialogue between attendees - and finds emerging technologies such as Tilt Brush by Google a huge boon to her live work: “I did an event for a luxury hotel group, and the beauty of the technology is that the results can be shared via mobile phones, so attendees can walk through it on their screens - that really anchors the message.”
Hatty has also applied her talents to epitomising, visually, the unique nuances of Mumbai, Dubai and Paris, and an exhibition offering up her interpretation of London - “A blend of pop culture, music, fashion and 1960s kitchen sink glamour” - is an upcoming project.
Another piece that came into view during that smartphone tour of Pedder’s realm of operation was a piece by the name of ‘Talifon’: one of a series of three works, and part of an exhibition by the name of KHOSH BOSH! Beirut. These mixed media pieces juxtapose manholes with grey aluminum sheets, silver leaf and photography and ink portrayals of the city’s most au courant denizens. “The pieces inspire the beholder to reflect on the contrast between the glamour and grit, and how they co-exist, in Beirut,” Hatty says. “Kosh Bosh is a Lebanese slang phrase which describes a relationship free of inhibitions or protocol, and it’s that spirit which captures the tone of this exhibition perfectly.”
The only threads that run through every commission Pedder receives are that they are all eagerly received (a Saudi sheikh once sent a private jet to collect the artwork she’d produced for him) and they are all unique. A family whose planned multi-occasion celebration in their French Chateaux was cancelled due to Covid, for example, once requested a virtual party in which flowers representing relatives mingled with symbolism concerning their wardrobes, their passion for football and their pets.
Offbeat family paintings are another speciality. “I love surrealism because you can just make anything happen in illustration - you can communicate a lot of things,” she says, adding that one of her most fulfilling commissions to date was from Günther de Temple: the owner of the aforementioned Auberge de Temple hotel, her first collector and now a very dear friend of Pedder’s who had a life altering accident in his early 20s.
Hatty Pedder working on murial
“A concept came to him when he saw a half dead and half alive tree that he identified with - he was so struck by it that he wanted it painted as a metaphor reflecting his journey,” Pedder says of The Fall of Icarus & the Rise of the Phoenix. “In the concept he identified with Icarus falling and then himself rising as the phoenix.”
Hatty Pedder’s future is about as scripted as one of her live event illustrations. An online shop packed with prints and products is amongst her plans, and further forays into interior design is also a box she plans to tick “I’d love to carry out an A-Z illustrated branding for a luxury restaurant space in London: interior, menus, everything,” she says.
The revamping of her home is another project in her sights “I want it to be a beautiful, surreal space with murals and lampshades and lots of botanical touches,” she says. But perhaps the mission closest to her heart is the establishment of a family business, her role within which would be to illustrate the children’s books written by her elder daughter Poppy (she’s also currently illustrating the children’s fiction her husband wrote when he had been given five weeks to live with cancer).
Pedder’s artistic stream of consciousness may follow a capricious narrative: but - other than the ever-expanding breadth of her repertoire when it comes to visual expression - we can be sure about just one thing in the upcoming chapters of her career. That organic work space will become an ever-more eclectic repository, packed with more and more artefacts which offer tantalising glimpses into fascinating stories.