Paula Hayes


Paula Hayes is an American visual artist and designer who works with sculpture, drawing, installation art, botany, and landscape design. Hayes has lived and worked in New York City for over two decades and is known for her terrariums and other living artworks, as well as her large-scale public and private landscapes. A major theme in Hayes' work is the connection of people to the natural environment, and much of her work is concerned with the care that is required to grow and maintain large- and small-scale ecosystems.

Early life and career

Hayes was raised on a farm in upstate New York. She received an MFA from Parsons The New School for Design in New York City in 1989 and a BS from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY in 1987. While studying at Parsons, she started a gardening business to support herself. In the early nineties, Hayes began exhibiting her work in galleries throughout New York City, including Fawbush Gallery, AC Project Room, White Columns, and Andrea Rosen Gallery.
Hayes currently works out of her studios in Brooklyn and the East Village. Hayes currently works out of her studios in New York City and UpState New York.

Work

Materials

Hayes' work uses living plants, minerals, and crystals; sculptural forms made of blown glass, silicone, cast acrylic, and/or ceramic; and both natural and built environments.
Hayes often makes use of 3D rendering programs and works with fabricators to manufacture her large-scale sculptures.

Philosophy

For her living artworks, Hayes relies on caretakers within the gallery or museum to help maintain the pieces. Hayes considers this collaboration with the caretaker/owner a very important aspect of her work; she created an "Agreement for A Living Artwork" to ensure that the owner is committed to caring for the work.

Exhibitions

Hayes has exhibited in New York City at the Museum of Modern Art, Lever House, The Fawbush Gallery, Salon 94, and Marianne Boesky Gallery; the Tang Museum in Saratoga Springs, NY; the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Schaffhausen Museum in Schaffhausen, Switzerland; Galerie fur Landscaftkunst in Hamburg, Germany; The Patricia Low Galerie in Gstaad, Switzerland; and Eigen and Art in Berlin, Germany, among many others.

Collections

Important collectors of Hayes’s work include: Aby Rosen, Alberto Mugrabi, David Zwirner, Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, Marianne Boesky, and Daniel and Margaret Loeb.

Private landscapes

Clients who have commissioned private landscapes include: Hauser & Wirth Gallery in New York, W Hotel in Miami, Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany, Marianne Boesky, Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn and Nicholas Rohatyn, Rafael and Diana Viñoly, David and Monica Zwirner, Mickey and Jeanne Klein, Andrea Rosen, and Jill Stuart and Ron Curtis.

Honors and awards

Hayes was nominated for a Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum Design Award in Landscape Design in 2009, and in Landscape
Architecture and Design Mind in 2011. She has design patents registered for 3 of her products in the US, the EU and Canada, awarded in 2010 and 2011.