Olive Hayes

Ovoid and erotic, the subjects of Olive M. Hayes’ (b. 1997) works serve as expressions of uninhibited emotion and sexuality. Their carnal acts are all-consuming, this intensity drawing the inanimate into their orbit. A cartoon-like elaboration on the ancient motif of the bather, these paintings employ the explicit and discard all discretion. Breasts and eyes bulge, fluids drip and spray, hair ripples in between limbs while noses stand erect. Almost extraterrestrial, Hayes’ works playfully capture the potency of uninhibited expression.

Olive M. Hayes lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. She was born in 1997 in Pittsburgh, PA and earned her BFA from the Moore College of Art & Design in 2020. Her solo exhibition, The Many Faces of Olive Hayes, was presented at MARCH in 2021. Her work has been included in Artists in Residence at Goldie Paley Gallery (Philadelphia, PA) and The NOW at A WAY Gallery (British Columbia, Canada) in 2020. She has also exhibited at Levy Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), Annenberg Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), and the Moore College of Art & Design (Philadelphia, PA). 

She received the Deborah Deery ’01, ’12 Memorial Award for Excellence in Art Education in 2020, the Fanny Brennan Scholarship for Excellence in Painting in 2019, and the Virginia E. Lewis Scholarship Fund from The Pittsburgh Foundation in 2018, among others. Hayes was recently selected for the 2021 Rome Art Program (Rome, Italy).

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