Statement

I come from gardeners, teachers, believers, sinners, moon-lighting loggers, makers, milliners, cooks, healers, pharmacists, and grocers.I come from the American South, a place where the kitchen and pharmacy are the same room. In many ways, I see my work as that same room—an expansive space for building and coming together.

Landscape and the material vocabulary of the American South influence my abstraction. Mining a southern povera, I use reclaimed textiles, fabric, and cardboard. These materials serve as stand-ins for expressive marks, and resourceful labor.

I paint as a form of note-taking and organizing knowledge. Grid systems serve as a scaffold for repeated patterns. I keep a rude, yet not untidy studio with a few burners going at once. I don’t tend to follow recipes—I am a process-based painter. 

Biography

Jodi Hays (b. 1976, Arkansas, United States) is a painter who exhibits widely across the United States. Her work has been shown at the Wiregrass Museum, Stoveworks Museum, the Brooks Museum (Memphis), Red Arrow Gallery, David Lusk Gallery, Labspace, Tiger Strikes Asteroid (GVL), Fisk University, Curb Center at Vanderbilt University, Grizzly Grizzly, Boston Center for the Arts and Cooper Union.

She is a 2019 Finalist for the Hopper Prize. She is the recipient of grants from Sustainable Arts Foundation, the Individual Artist Fellowship from the Tennessee Arts Commission, and the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation. Residencies include The Cooper Union School of Art and Vermont Studio Center. Her work is documented in catalogues and has been published in New American Painting and Hyperallergic, and positively reviewed in publications such as ArtForum International, New Art Examiner, Number Inc. Magazine, the Nashville Scene and Two Coats of Paint.

Her paintings can be found in many public and corporate collections including the Birmingham Museum of Art, J Crew Group (New York), Nashville International Airport, National Parks of America, Gordon College (MA), the Tennessee State Museum, among others. She lives and works in Nashville, Tennessee.