Jacob Hayes
United States
ARTIST BIO
Jacob Hayes earned his BFA in painting from the University of Kansas and completed his MFA in 2014 at the New York Academy of Art where he studied oil painting. Hayes’ paintings have been featured in both solo and group exhibitions including “Artists by Artists” at Forum Gallery, New York, “About Face” at the South Hampton Art Center, South Hampton NY, and “Summer Exhibition” at Flowers Gallery, NY. In 2016, his portrait Grady was accepted into the competitive and prestigious BP Portrait Award Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, which also traveled to the Usher Gallery in Lincoln and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh. In 2019, he was a semifinalist in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. Jacob currently lives and paints in Kansas.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I paint psychological portraits within the setting of rural American life. The subjects of my work are family members and friends painted against the backdrop of Kansas and the iconography and memories of my childhood - wood paneling, taxidermy deer, catfish, hunting, the big sky and open plains. My paintings combine the aesthetics of posed portraiture against naturalistic settings and explore the idea of what is real and what is fake, what is natural and what is posed. This body of work allows me to explore the complexities of my family members, their faults and imperfections and the unfortunate cycles in our family narrative.
* This statement has been provided directly by the artist in association to their 16th International ARC Salon entries. This content has not been edited for typos or grammatical errors and has not been vetted for accuracy.
