Art & Design Alumnus, Gerry Hayes Exhibition at Curry College

Gerry Hayes, MFA 1966 Painting will have an exhibition, "Art Reclaimed" at Curry College on
January 22-February 26, 2024
Reception: Tuesday, February 6, 2024 at 6:30 p.m.
Curry College, Shelley Hoon Keith Gallery, Curry College, Student Center, 1071 Blue Hill Avenue, Milton, MA 02186

Hayes' painting medium currently, and for the past several years has been in the area of 'painted reliefs'.

He comments: "In recent artwork, I have added molded fiber relief forms - that are found in packaging, - to the surface of my paintings. 'Molded fiber', one of the most environmentally friendly and sustainable packaging forms that is made from recycled paper and water. The pressed paper forms are most often thrown away or recycled with the boxes that they came in. By adding them to my art works, I take them from disposable to desirable. Found objects, yes, but I don't use them as they come. I cut, glue, combine and transform elements that fit the ideas for each painting. The painting of shapes with colors, completes the completed look of each work.  In addition, relief paintings are unique and set themselves apart from traditional, flat 2-dimensional painting. This hybrid of painting can be viewed as extending the tradition of Marcel Duchamp's ready-mades in Dada, to the ‘combines’ of American Pop artists of Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and others."

Gerry Hayes' career as been as an educator and a painter, installation sculptor and conceptual artist.

Hayes' academic career has been at Pratt Institute where he served as graduate faculty, teaching seminars in painting, drawing, and printmaking. In addition, Gerry served as an administrator in the Undergraduate Painting and Drawing Department and later as Assistant Chair of the Fine Arts Department. In 2006, Professor Hayes resigned from Pratt and moved with his family, from New York City to Marblehead, Massachusetts where he currently lives and maintains a studio.

Gerry’s work has been the subject of numerous group and one-person exhibitions at several national galleries and museums including the Denise Bibro's Platform Gallery, the Mitchell Algus Gallery, the Reese Palley Gallery, David Hall Fine Arts in Wellesley, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Rochester Institute of Technology, and the Krannert Art Museum. Hayes' work is also included in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Hayes has been working with packaging materials in his paintings since 2017, and recently, REPURPOSED, a series of paintings presented on packaging materials was the subject of a one-person exhibition at the John Molloy Gallery in New York City.

Art Reclaimed is Co-Curated by:
Alison Poor-Donahue, MFA
Professor and Chair, Visual and Performing Arts Department
Jim Fitts, Professor, Graphic Design