by Rachel B. Hayes
Artist’s Bio
Rachel Hayes received her BFA in Fiber from the Kansas City Art Institute and her MFA in Painting from Virginia Commonwealth University. Often using fabric to create large-scale work, she is interested in inserting color and form into both built and natural environments.
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She is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Award in Painting and Sculpture, Augustus Saint-Gaudens Memorial Fellowship in Sculpture, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowship in Sculpture, Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellowship in Sculpture, and a Charlotte Street Fund Award. Hayes has attended the Marie Walsh Sharpe Space Program, New York, NY; Sculpture Space Residency, Utica, NY; Art Omi International Artists International Residency, Ghent, NY; Roswell Artist-in-Residence program in Roswell, NM; and the Tulsa Artist Fellowship in Tulsa, OK.
She has exhibited her work at institutions including the Sculpture Center in New York City, NY; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY; Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV; Fruitlands Museum & deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, MA; Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, KS; Roswell
Museum of Art, Roswell, NM; Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, Cornish, NH, and galleries such as Lowell Ryan Projects, Los Angeles, CA; Marinaro, New York, NY; BravinLee Programs, New York, NY; and ADA Gallery, Richmond, VA.
Hayes has collaborated with the Italian fashion house Missoni on four projects, culminating with a solo exhibition during Milan Design Week. Recently, she exhibited site-specific installations with ISTANBUL74 during the 16th Contemporary Istanbul, in Turkey and at NOMAD in Capri, IT. Her 2024 installation “The Space In Between” is permanently up in the atrium at the International Quilt Museum.
Artistic Vision
Rachel Hayes' "Shifting Light" installation for the Aspen Pedestrian Mall features ten hand-sewn panels that visitors can walk beneath, creating an immersive experience of color and light.
Each panel begins with a central piece of fabric, and color by color, block by block, the pattern builds outward toward the edge using the traditional log-cabin quilt technique.
Inspired by log-cabin quilts, abstract painting, stained glass, and covered open-air corridors around the world, this handmade artwork intimately responds to the changing light throughout the day while boldly scaling to the surrounding nature.
The installation expands Hayes' ongoing exploration of light and color, working with a palette that evokes the joy and diversity of the surrounding landscape. Hayes, an artist born in Independence, Missouri, draws visual inspiration from traditions of quilt making, architecture, painting, and stained glass. Her colorful installations use fabric, plastic, metal, and glass to transform space, creating environments that shift and evolve with natural light.