Mayhew refers to himself as "an improvisationalist." when describing his work. He says that he uses "painting terms like expressionism only as reference point for others. They don't understand improvisation...real, gut feeling, the act of improvising as the act of discovery. That's abstract expression. That's jazz." His affinity to the land comes from his African American and Native American heritage, says Mayhew. "It's a dual commitment to nature. The land is very important to both cultures in terms of stimulation and spiritual sensitivity, and it's very important to me." For Mayhew, that connection to the land transfers intuitively to the canvas. However, Mayhew adds, "Many of my so-called landscapes are very abstract because they are very free-form; I am involved with the spiritual feeling of space. My art is based on a feeling - of music, mood, sensitivity and the audio responses of sound and space. I want the essence of the inner soul to be on the canvas." Mayhew's mastery of light and color contribute to paintings that are mystical with close tonal harmonies and diffused landscapes that often flow into abstraction. His muted colors, delicate pastels, lush greens and deep purplish-blues create moods that are real and imagined, earthly and ethereal.  

Born in 1934 in Amityville, New York, Mayhew's reverence for the land and sea was established during his early years in his small hamlet on Long Island. His father, Alvin Mayhew, was of African-American and Shinnecock Indian descent; his mother, Lillian Goldman Mayhew, was the product of a Cherokee Indian and African-American ancestry.   In the late 1950s, Mayhew studied art at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, the Art Students League and Hans Hofmann's School of Fine Art in New York. An abstract expressionist, Hoffmann instructed him in color and the freedom of intuitive expression. Other teachers included Reuben Tam, who reinforced Mayhew's spiritual kinship with nature; Edwin Dickerson, an American impressionist; and Max Beckham, an expressionist who helped Mayhew channels emotions through his work.

He commits each impression to memory like a Zen master until the time arrives to reveal them on paper or canvas. His creative process is therefore twofold: he experiences through sight and feeling and then selectively interprets that experience through paint. In addition to his worldwide exhibitions, Mayhew's work is represented in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art; the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution; the Brooklyn Museum; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum; The Manoogian Collection and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, among others.