ANDREW HAYES
PA S S A G E S
ANDREW HAYES: PASSAGES
ANDREW HAYES: PASSAGES Exhibition: September 1 - October 4, 2015 Reception for the Artist: Saturday, September 12, 5:30 to 7:30 pm Front Cover: Sufflate, 13 x 9 x 9 in, steel, altered book Back Cover: Pip, 7 x 5 x 4 in, steel, altered book Essay Š 2015 Donna Seager Photo Credit: Steve Mann of Black Box Photography Asheville, NC Catalog Design: Donna Seager, Seager Gray Gallery Direct all inquiries to: Seager Gray Gallery 108 Throckmorton Ave. Mill Valley, CA 94941 All rights reserved.
ANDREW HAYES: PASSAGES Imagine sculptures made of steel combined with perfectly aligned sections of book pages. That would be the work of Andrew Hayes. His steel forms with their meticulous attention to detail can be imagined as maquettes for formalist monumental works - Tony Smith or Fletcher Benton come to mind - sculptors who took pride both in the formal “rightness” of the work and in the perfection of their skills. You will not see a weld or an unfinished edge in Hayes’ sculpture and the finishes are finely milled or feathered and beautifully polished. These perfected forms are orchestrated to hold various thicknesses of book pages taken from the text block of dictionaries, bibles, encyclopedias or whatever books most serve his purpose. The critical tension between the ephemeral nature of paper and the durability of steel combines with the fascination of content as material in these endlessly engaging works of art. Hayes is uniquely suited to his medium. He has the physicality of a steel sculptor – the love of fabrication and raw material and an abiding work ethic. But his work is not raw. It is elegant. After working with binders, fine press people and book artists, we have come to see that there is a culture of the book – a reverence for them. The book is a perfect invention, perfectly made, possibly the most engaging object that can be imagined. Perfection may be something that humans can only take aim at, but book makers take aim at it more squarely than most. Hayes shares that intention toward perfection. The pages in the sculpture are not glued or manipulated in any other way than by cutting , then constraining the paper between the metal forms and riveting the steel and paper together holds them in place. His calculations are precise and exacting even as he remains fluid, playing with transitions in shape and form.
-------------------------Guard
22 x 16 x 16 in 55.88 x 40.64 x 40.64 cm steel, altered book, paint, 2015
Take for instance, Guard, a horizontal work that transitions gracefully from curved on the left to flat on the right. A beautifully articulated notch provides negative space and breaks up the line across the top while echoing the visible combination of curve and line in relief. Two layers of page blocks provide a pleasing contrast between unprinted and printed edges. The pages behave curiously like water in that they take the form of the container – in this case the curved form cut into the bottom of the sculpture. This is accommodated by the elegant slender shaft that provides a shape for the pages to curve around and a solid form for the artist to use as an anchor to which to rivet the paper. Other exquisite details include the introduction of color in the form of the two small red dots, so satisfying against the polished steel, possibly the heads of the rods that secure the paper.
-------------------------Dure
(alternate image on page 17)
-------------------------Rest
(alternate image on page 18)
Earlier in his career, Hayes’ sculpture investigated landscape, often the landscape of the Southwest where he was raised. A return to those inclinations, incorporating the book pages might be found in works like Dure and Rest. In Dure, a steel form creates the eastern border of a space created entirely of book pages - a more massive block of book pages than was seen in earlier works - bounded by a blue plate of steel. In this case, we see the edges of the paper from three sides – top bottom and front. There is something inherently beautiful in edges and the naturally aged brown paper of the pages combined with the shape resembles mesas or rock formations seen in the southwest. A similar feeling can be found in Rest, a piece with pages that have the same rocky mass feeling, but with a red border. The steel is more rugged looking like slate adding to the natural feeling of the work. Generally in sculpture, yin and yang might be represented as positive and negative space or form and space. They can be thought of as complementary (rather than opposing) forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts. In using the book pages, Hayes increases the vocabulary of sculpture by adding ephemeral elements of fluidity (pages) that suggest content, though not using the content as part of the work. This came about through his fellowship with Penland School of Crafts in Penland, North Carolina where he remains a resident artist. At Penland, he took a class from Brooklyn altered book artist, Doug Beube who taught a workshop encouraging students to examine the formal physical properties of books and their potential as a material for art.
Hayes was poised for a breakthrough and his subsequent examinations combining steel and book pages appealed to book lovers and art collectors alike. Since that time he has been included in major collections, including the Yale Museum of Art Collection, the University of Arkansas, Little Rock and the Wingate University Special Collections Library in Wingate, North Carolina. He has participated in residency programs and has been the subject of many articles and reviews including this one in the online British publication, Books on Books, Bookmarking Book Art by Robert Bolick who writes, To find a union of metal and the printed page as rich and tactile as that created by Andrew, we would have to hark back to the days of hot metal typesetting or farther still to the chained library. But, while the titles of Andrew’s works may evoke the historical or archaeological, the works themselves do not assume the printed book’s demise; they emphasize and celebrate the material of the book.
In Fabrication, Hayes deviates from the use of book pages with a wall piece that ingeniously contrasts a right angle (moving left) in the foreground that widens at the base and becomes a rounded curve against the wall. The piece is capped on the left armature by a perfect rectangular forming the end of the right angle that widens into the base. It is patinaed an exquisite powdery blue. The sculpture is formalist in style using the stuff of geometry to orchestrate a work that contrasts the straight line with organic form. It is evocative and beautiful – reminiscent of something said by Fletcher Benton,
-------------------------Fabrication
11 x 8 x 3 in 27.94 x 20.32 x 7.62 cm steel, altered book, 2015
My bone pile—or my palette—is made up of geometry, of shapes that are fairly common to most all of us, as musical notes are common to most all of us. I feel that my job is to take the keys of my piano and put them together in chords, with notes, with timing, with repetition, with crescendo, with beat, with all of the things that go into music. I believe that those same things can be visual.
A natural born sculptor with a keen sense of form and respect for materials, Hayes works with torches, grinders and raw steel to create works characterized by their sensitivity and grace and what Kandinsky called the “inherent rightness” or “inner sound.” The dichotomy between toughness on one hand and such sensitive and focused attention to detail on the other marks Hayes as a masterful artist whose work will endure into the future.
- Donna Seager, 2015
-------------------------Sufflate
13 x 9 x 9 in 33.02 x 22.86 x 22.86 cm steel, altered book, 2015
-------------------------Bolster
10 x 7 x 5 in 25.4 x 17.78 x 12.7 cm steel, altered book, brass, 2015
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Diagonal Study Triptych steel, altered book 2015
-------------------------Diagonal Study 1
15 x 8 x 3.5 in 38.1 x 20.32 x 8.89 cm steel, altered book, 2015
-------------------------Diagonal Study 2
10.5 x 8 x 3.5 in 26.67 x 20.32 x 8.89 cm steel, altered book, 2015
-------------------------Diagonal Study 3
15 x 8 x 3.5 in 38.1 x 20.32 x 8.89 cm steel, altered book, 2015
-------------------------Dure
12 x 17 x 6 in 30.48 x 43.18 x 15.24 cm steel, altered book, 2015
-------------------------Rest
13.5 x 11 x 7 in 34.29 x 27.94 x 17.78 cm steel, altered book, 2015
-------------------------Passage
15 x 9 x 4 in 38.1 x 22.86 x 10.16 cm steel, altered book, paint, 2015
-------------------------Grasp
15 x 5 x 2 in 38.1 x 12.7 x 5.08 cm steel, altered book, bronze 2015
-------------------------Gyron
19 x 10 x 3 in 48.26 x 25.4 x 7.62 cm steel, altered book, 2015
-------------------------Pip
7.5 x 5 x 4 in 19.05 x 12.7 x 10.16 cm steel, altered book, 2015
-------------------------Spate
9 x 4.5 x 3 in 22.86 x 11.43 x 7.62 cm steel, altered book, 2015
-------------------------Stretch
9 x 7 x 2 in 22.86 x 17.78 x 5.08 cm steel, altered book, 2015
-------------------------Pawl
16 x 6 x 2.5 in 40.64 x 15.24 x 6.35 cm steel, altered book, paint, 2015
-------------------------Swage
12 x 9 x 3 in 30.48 x 22.86 x 7.62 cm steel, altered book, paint 2015
-------------------------Key
15 x 3 x 3.5 in 38.1 x 7.62 x 8.89 cm steel, altered book, 2015
ANDREW HAYES EDUCATION 2007 - 2009 2000 - 2004
Core Fellowship, Penland NC Northern Arizona University, bachelor of fine arts candidate
SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2015 2014 2013 2012
Andrew Hayes: Passages, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA Andrew Hayes: Volumes, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA Tributaries: Andrew Hayes, National Ornamental Iron Museum, Memphis, TN Strata: Paper and Steel, Lux Center for the Arts, Lincoln, NE Altered Books, Gallery at the Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, OR Diction, Penland Focus Gallery, Penland, NC
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2015
Ten Years of Artists’ Books, Brooklyn Pubic Library, curated by Donna Seager Structure Penland Group Show, Blue Spiral, Asheville, NC Art on Paper, represented by JBH Gallery, Pier 36, New York, NY Codex International Book Fair, Represented by Seager Gray Gallery, Richmond, CA The Penland Experience: Works for the UALR Permanent Art Collection and the collection of Robyn and John Horn. University of Arkansas Little Rock, Little Rock, AR The Fine Art of Contemporary Craft, Watson MacRae Gallery, Sanibel, FL The Art of the Book, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA
2014
Miami Project, Represented by JHB Gallery, Miami Beach, FL Aqua Art Miami, Represented by Seager Gray Gallery, Miami Beach, FL Winter Selections, J. Johnson Gallery, Jacksonville Beach, FL Odd Volumes: Book Art from the Allan Chasanoff Collection, Yale Art Gallery, New Haven, CT Somewhere Between Creation and Destruction, Joseloff Gallery, Hartford University, Hartford, CT Pulp Culture - Paper is the Medium, Morris Museum, Morristown, NJ Boundless: The Book Transformed in Contemporary Art, Mesa Contemporary Art Museum, Mesa, AZ ArtMrkt Represented by JHB Gallery, Hamptons, NY Transformed/The Sculpture of Books, Graficas Gallery, Nantucket, MA Ex Libris, J. Johnson Gallery, Jacksonville Beach, FL Bound and Beautiful, The Art of Books, Watson MacRae Gallery, Sanibel, FL ArtMrkt, Represented by Seager Gray Gallery, San Francisco, CA The Art of the Book, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA
2013 CONTEXT Art Miami, Represented by Seager Gray Gallery, Miami, FL Spectrum Gala, Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, TN Iron + Carbon: 3 in Steel, Yadkinville Cultural Arts Center, Yadkinville, NC Collectors Choice, Invitational, Green Hill, Space for NC Art, Greensboro, NC This is Contemporary Art, Marta Hewett Gallery, Cincinnati, OH Summer Salon, Blue Spiral 1, Asheville NC ArtMrkt, Represented by Seager Gray Gallery, San Francisco, CA The Art of the Book, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA Metal Bound, Featured Artist, NoMa Gallery, Charlotte, NC Codex International Book Fair, Represented by Seager Gray Gallery, Richmond, CA Materials Matter, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA TEACHING AND RELATED EXPERIENCE 2014 Artist in Residency Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC Co-Teacher Clay and Steel Studio Intensive with Brad Miller and Michael Sherrill. Anderson Ranch, Snowmass Village, CO Visiting Artist, Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC Artist’s Assistant Kohler Arts/Industry Residency Program, Kohler, WI PUBLICATIONS AND FEATURES Mallette, Catherine. Ironwork Today 4, Schiffer Publishing 0’ Sullivan, Joanne. Beyond Words, Andrew Hayes’ Sculpture Deconstructs the Book, WNC, September/October issue Print Dacheux, Stacy. Sleek Sculpture Combines Metal with Pressed Book Pages. Beautiful Decay, August 7, 2013 Young, Meghan. Artist Andrew Hayes Manipulates Metal and Novels. Trendhunter, August 9, 2013 Baker, Sara. Andrew Hayes – Artist, American Style, Issue 74 Winter 2010 - 2011 Print COLLECTIONS
Yale Art Museum, Yale University, New Haven, CT Robyn and John Horn, Little Rock, AK Wingate University, Wingate, NC Black Mountain College, Black Mountain, NC Mary Austin, Founder, San Francisco Center for the Book, San Francisco, CA