Off-Site is an ongoing series of features about Nashville-based artists whose work is being exhibited elsewhere.

Jodi Hays has a long history in Nashville, and an even longer history in the South. A native of Hot Springs, Ark., Hays has lived in Nashville since 2005. She spent four years as the gallery director at Tennessee State University, where she brought in art-world heavyweights like William Pope.L, Hank Willis Thomas and Shaun Leonardo. She’s exhibited with Red Arrow Gallery and ZieherSmith, and her show at The Browsing Room inside the Downtown Presbyterian Church received a coveted ArtForum Critic’s Pick.

Jodi Hays

For The Find, her first solo show in Los Angeles, Hays is exhibiting mostly large-scale works that the artist refers to as “backless quilts” — a kind of descriptive shorthand for her unique process. 

“The Find relates to reclaimed materials and the idea that materials have been taken from Goodwill or recycling bins or hand-me-downs from my family,” the artist tells the Scene from her home in East Nashville. “But The Find is also what an artist practices — a lifetime of searching for something.”