Jodi Hays American, b. 1976
"For Hays, it often felt like Southern artists were grouped into two buckets: those responding to the region’s fraught history; and those making rigorous, significant work in spite of their location. Looking to break from that, her paintings—with that designation becoming looser by the day—jumble a dewy-eyed image of the South with the modernist grid and the postmodern fascination with signs, symbols, and lexicons."
- Robert Alan Grand, Oxford American, 2024.
Jodi Hays is a Tennessee-based artist whose work explores the material vocabulary of painting filtered through visual habits of the American South. Jodi Hays has exhibited her work at galleries and museums across the United States including Corcoran Gallery of Art, Brooks Museum of Art, Cooper Union, and Boston Center for the Arts. Her work can be found in collections including Birmingham Museum of Art, The J. Crew Group, and the Tennessee State Museum.
Jodi Hays is a recipient of several awards including from NYFA/Rauschenberg Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Art, Sustainable Arts Foundation, Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation, and Hopper Prize. Originally from Arkansas, Hays holds a BFA from The University of Tennessee and an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Art. NOtable Scholarship includes close work wth the late Pope.L, and fostering collaborations with other artists. Residencies include Yaddo, the Cooper Union, Stoveworks, and Vermont Studio Center. Her work has been published in New American Painting and Hyperallergic, mentioned in the New York Times, and positively reviewed in ArtForum International and Two Coats of Paint. Her work has been seen most recently in a solo exhibition at Night Gallery (Los Angeles), Susan Inglett Gallery (New York) and Devening Projects (Chicago). She is represented regionally by David Lusk Gallery.
