
Cathy Hayes Blog
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Cathy Hayes' lavishly expressive paint and mixed media work is the culmination of a multifarious assemblage of tropical, metropolitan, vernacular and cultivated influences. Visit Artist Blog by Cathy Hayes which features all her artwork, inspirations and more.
Cathy Hayes Blog
5M ago
A collaborative sharing of truths, laughter, experience and ideas.
Picking up the Pieces
...a three woman show about (im)perfection.
This work is concerned with a collective pressure to avoid failure, in all its guises. As women, mothers, artists and humans, we struggle to reach societal perfection. Despite our efforts we still fall short of the excellence we are expected to achieve. We have become objects
of criticism, corrected, fixed and improved, in other words; failing.
The media’s ongoing fixation on women’s appearances and corresponding ‘value’, holds a power over us. The unobtainable ..read more
Cathy Hayes Blog
7M ago
The Bearded Iris, Acrylic on canvas, 51cm x 41cm
I am pleased to announce that my work ‘The Bearded Iris’, will be exhibited as part of the group show ‘MUD, FOR YOU’ at The Fitzrovia Gallery in London, from the 28/03 - 2/04.
There will be a private view on the 31/03 at 6pm.
You can reserve tickets here: MUD, FOR YOU
Is it just mud or gold that you see on these walls?
"The pigment itself is reverse alchemy, a gold that becomes shit in our studios, and our task is to try to turn that shit back into gold" - from Amy Sillman's book ’Faux Pas’, 2020.
As illustrated in this book, all painters spe ..read more
Cathy Hayes Blog
7M ago
Elif Shafak
Elif Shafak, the award-winning British Turkish novelist, is a force of inspiration whom I have long admired. Her powerful novels, her journalism and her media feeds, relay the tales of the atrocities happening right now, to girls and women in Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan. Her stories have a very physical impact on me, my breathing stops, an inadvertant sigh emerges. Reading her words, it feels like I am covered into breathing my last breath, but then my heart races. It races with indignance, empathy, despair and hope.
Shafak is a Fellow and a Vice President of the Royal Society of ..read more
Cathy Hayes Blog
7M ago
St. Brigid’s day (Gaelic: Lá Fhéile Bríde), celebrated on February 1st has just passed.
One of the three patron saints of Ireland, she never meant much to me growing up, beyond the school activity of weaving a Brigid’s Cross or reeds and straw. However, this year for the first time, the day has been allocated as a new annual public holiday in Ireland, and so on listening to a recent Blindboy podcast, ‘Saint Brigid Solvent Abuse and Irish Mythology’ (episode 182), I have been inspired me to dig a little deeper into my own cultural past.
Greek mythology has long been a research interest of my p ..read more
Cathy Hayes Blog
7M ago
PICKING UP THE PIECES, ‘The Imperfect Art Collaborative’
Cathy Hayes
Darina Meagher
Annmarie Webb
From the homicidal bitchin'
That goes down in every kitchen
To determine who will serve and who will eat
From the wells of disappointment
Where the women kneel to pray
For the grace of God in the desert here
And the desert far away
Excerpt from ‘Democracy’ Leonard Cohen, 1992
The philosophical idea of Kintsugi; accepting and appreciating the beauty of repaired ceramic ware, which accepts the imperfection and appreciates the history associated with its age and accidents ..read more
Cathy Hayes Blog
7M ago
DARK TALES OF PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE
Recently exhibited as part of
‘In Formation’
Thames Side Studios, London
…I find myself questioning myths and old stories. Those upon which our culture has been based. These inquiries prompt me to create new paintings, by re-imagining such mythological tales from an fictitious position of gender equality.
Above all, my creative practice is a process - one of unlearning embedded cultural stories.
By working with black, I reimagine the emotions and energy within these stories through the movement of colour. For me, the black background acts to inten ..read more
Cathy Hayes Blog
7M ago
The work ‘Phoebe’s Hand’, will be on show as part of the exhibition ‘Journey into Unknown’ at Copeland Gallery, London, opening November 10th, 2021.
Journey into Unknown
At Copeland gallery
Nov 10-14
Phoebe’s Hand (after Rubens), 2020, mixed media on canvas, 183 cm x 183 cm
The idea of changing our consciousness is an element of what I try to achieve as an artist. I use different tools to do this. Of course, the usual tools at the disposal of an artist such as drawing, painting and sometimes sculpture, however in this work it is the colour that I use as my tool. I use it to attempt to burn an ..read more
Cathy Hayes Blog
7M ago
SUBJECT TO CHANGE: ART IN THE TIME OF THE PANDEMIC
Pieta 3
Lewisham Art House
Exhibition Dates: 15 – 25 October 2021, 12 - 6 PM
‘Subject to Change’ brings together the work of seven emerging international artists responding to our ever changing political and physical environment where identities and the politics of memory are continuously renegotiated. With social and political volatility heightened, this exhibition by a group of Postgraduate alumni from Camberwell College of Arts pertinently questions the symbolic capital attached to established cultural myths, interrogates the on-going stru ..read more
Cathy Hayes Blog
7M ago
No Format Gallery, Deptford
Opening to public 19th - 24th October
Cathy Hayes’ work is concerned with power and gender, specifically the depiction of female strength. She seeks to reclaim women’s power, presenting female heroines who can help us unlearn our conditioned past. Both paintings in the show were made during the pandemic.
The first, ‘Covid Warrior’, was inspired by a recent fashion campaign; each model on the catwalk carried another woman either draped on her shoulders or wrapped around her waist. This show of solidarity contrasts starkly with the solitary figure in the second paint ..read more
Cathy Hayes Blog
7M ago
Thoughts on…
THE AVENGERS, 2021
75cm x 170cm, oil on canvas, framed
This triptych was made this year (2021) in response to my grief and rage at the ever-increasing stories of violence towards women, I no longer want to see women as victims. I want to see powerful, depictions of women, ones that inspire as well as terrify. I believe that our history of violence has created a monstrosity, one from which we find it hard to awaken from, let alone to find new directions away from. As a result, women’s voices still remain marginalized and disrespected. This seems to ..read more