The Hastings Gallery

Terry Hastings is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans digital collage, minimal abstraction, and photography that transforms realism into quiet myth. Rooted in desert light and regional memory, his practice explores how place, gesture, and composition can evoke not just what was seen—but what was remembered, rehearsed, or imagined.

Whether through the restrained geometry of his Postcards series or the elemental choreography of Four Elements, Hastings builds visual narratives that invite viewers into a world both familiar and fictional. Even the most realistic images carry a sense of staging—each one a scene, a signal, a story in motion.

This is art as narrative architecture. Photography as performance. And Palm Springs as you’ve never quite seen it—though it may feel strangely like home.

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Digital Art

This Is Digital Art as Dramaturgy Terry Hastings holds a degree in theatre—and he will never let you forget it. His digital compositions are modular, mythic, and emotionally precise. Each series is a scene. Each image, a gesture. This is where color, memory, and fictional terrain take center stage.

Minimalism is his method of clarity. Hastings uses it not as reduction, but as precision—stripping each composition to its essentials so the message lands quickly, emotionally, and without distraction. It’s storytelling by subtraction: no clutter, just resonance.

• Chromatica: A modular series built on the emotional resonance of color. Horizontal planes—pool, desert, sky—layer into quiet tonal progressions that mirror breath and landscape. Adaptable in scale, grounded in poetic clarity, and staged across the full prism spectrum.

• Midwest Memory: Family myth, long drives, and the emotional architecture of North Dakota and Minnesota. A series narrated by uncles, janitors, and memory itself—where restraint meets regional storytelling.

• The Three P’s: Pools, Postcards, and Palm Springs—a triptych of desert iconography, staged nostalgia, and fictional signage. Each piece a wink, a whisper, and a welcome mat.

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​Photography

Movement, Mood, and the Staged Realism of Self

Terry Hastings’ photographic journey began in 2002 with a digital camera and a clothing store. By 2009, he had relocated to Palm Springs, trading studio lights for the desert’s natural glow and an endless outdoor canvas. What began as documentation has evolved into a practice of visual storytelling—where even realism feels rehearsed, and every image carries the weight of intention.

His work now unfolds in thematic series, most notably The Four Elements and Photocollage—each exploring transformation, perspective, and the choreography of light.

• The Four Elements: A meditation on becoming, told through Wind, Water, Fire, and Earth.

  • Wind activates motion and possibility—shot among Palm Springs turbines, it captures breath before action.

  • Water distorts and reflects—emotion dissolving form in fluid dreamscapes.

  • Fire reveals—illuminating truth, carving clarity from shadow.

  • Earth returns—grounded, textured, and surrendered to memory.

Together, these works are not just portraits of nature—they’re stages in the human cycle of transformation. Movement becomes ritual. Fabric becomes story. Nature becomes mirror.

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• Photocollage: Inspired by David Hockney’s Joiners, these works reimagine photography as sequence—fragmented, overlapping, and alive. Some are quiet figure studies made from 50 images; others are intricate narratives built from hundreds of frames. Each collage captures not just form but flow: the shifting of light, gesture, and point of view across time.

By deconstructing and reassembling, Hastings invites viewers to see more than once—to follow movement, to piece together story, and to enter the image as something lived, not just seen.

Conversations

Behind the Image, Beneath the Surface

Terry Hastings’ work doesn’t end at the edge of the frame—it begins there. Conversations is where the deeper layers unfold: essays, interviews, and character-driven vignettes that explore the themes, voices, and processes behind the art. From fictional docents to real collaborators, this is the canon in dialogue—always expanding, always inviting.

Whether you’re curious about the emotional architecture of Midwest Memories, the chromatic logic of Chromatica, or the choreography behind The Four Elements, this section offers a backstage pass to the ideas that shape the work.

Collecting Terry Hastings

Art That Performs, Resonates, and Remembers

To collect a work by Terry Hastings is to bring home more than an image—it’s to acquire a scene, a story, a moment in motion. Each piece is designed with clarity and adaptability, making it equally at home in galleries, boutique spaces, or private collections.

Collectors often describe the work as quietly theatrical—minimal yet emotionally rich, abstract yet deeply familiar. Whether you’re drawn to the tonal precision of Chromatica, the narrative depth of Photocollage, or the elemental power of The Four Elements, you’re not just collecting art. You’re joining the canon.

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