“The river coursing through us is dirty and deep.” C.D. Wright Everything Good Between Men and Women

Jodi Hays employs aspects of our basest, most ancient, human nature in her paintings. She is part hunter-gatherer, part sorceress, part carpenter, part seamstress; resourceful and recalcitrant, the careworn, warrior mother assembling enough material to blanket her family. Upcycled ephemeral material from fabric fragments, long buried cardboard found in thrift store frames, and disassembled packing materials are dyed and reconfigured into, at times, vast tapestries of abstraction, manifest as ancestor worship, others act as snapshots of a garden stroll or the formal portrait of a grandmother’s cherished old country doily. Logos, text and printed blandishments are obfuscated and highlighted, revealing Hays’ concrete, poetic underpinnings. And poetry does inform these works (there does not appear to be a line written by fellow Arkansan C.D. Wright that hasn’t inspired her,) the poetry of her Arkansas homeland. And her work reflects the strength of this connection, like long-weathered denim, an old farmer’s glove or the welcome mat of home’s darkened doorway, these old scraps of paper resonate with
anachronistic vigor, like hidden gifts long forgotten, and Hays is as concerned with the box as what’s inside.

Jodi Hays’ work has been exhibited at the Wiregrass Museum, Stoveworks Museum, The Brooks Museum, Red Arrow Gallery, David Lusk Gallery and Tiger Strikes Asteroid and reviewed in publications including Artforum and Hyperallergic, among others. Born in Hot Springs, Arkansas in 1976, she lives and works in Nashville.