Connie Hayes
Place as Muse
April 5 – May 25, 2024
When Connie Hayes turned sixty-six last year, she started doing a series of self-portraits. It was something of a surprise to a Maine painter who has spent her career focusing on work that is largely comprised of landscapes and still life studies: bucolic French gardens, gridlock in Manhattan, Vinalhaven at dusk.
She did twenty-five drawings, refreshing her knowledge of anatomy and the structural elements of the face. She wasn’t interested in having versions of her own face leave the privacy of her studio but she was neverthe- less invigorated by the exercise. She put out a community-wide call, asking if people would sit for her to have their portraits drawn and, over the months of January and February of this year, Hayes drew one hundred portraits of people throughout the Rockland area.
Connie Hayes was recently interviewed in the Art of Maine issue of Maine Thing Quarterly. “When Connie Hayes says something is beautiful, it’s not just an observation. It’s a call to action. “My process is to be astonished first,” she explained. “When I’m astonished with the light, with the color, with the shape – the way the yellow is pulsating underneath something – that astonishment makes me itchy. My hands start to move. I’m grabbing for paper.”
Connie Hayes is one of Maine’s best-known painters. She was born in Gardiner and now lives and works in Rockland. Through the ’80s, she held administrative and teaching posts at Maine College of Art. In the ’90s she lived in New York City. Her work has been extremely popular: Greenhut Galleries sold many hundreds of her paintings in the past and Dowling Walsh does very well with her now. Her work is familiar. Yet, Hayes’ large exhibition of new works at Dowling Walsh, “New Work From Italy,” caught me by surprise.
Hayes was interviewed in her studio about her process in Maine Thing Quarterly’s recent Art Issue. She answers the question, Why Art?
Larry Groff recently interviewed Connie Hayes for Painting Perceptions, a blog that serves as a vehicle for artists to present and discuss their ideas and work through interview format. He was fortunate to meet Connie last summer in Civita Castellana, Italy and was curious to find out more about her new body of work.
Many of the artists we represent are teaching workshops this summer. Treat yourself to a class.
Join artist and marketing expert Leslie Saeta as she highlights way to sell your art. Leslie is joined by November co-host Margaret Sheldon. Today's show features an interview with artist Connie Hayes. Connie is an award-winning artist known for her bold use of color and composition to create unique views of the small towns and unseen places in Maine. Known for her colorful landscapes, Connie Hayes’s paintings beautifully depict the quiet moments of daily life. Join us for a great show!
Connie Hayes has been named to the Faculty of the JSS in Civita Summer Art School & Residency in Italy. She will teach an intense, three-week course, titled “Borrowed Views,” for artists who have tried painting on location, and seriously want to improve their process, skill and, results. Civita Castellana is an ancient and picturesque city with about sixteen thousand inhabitants located forty miles north of Rome, in the district of Northern Lazio. The region, with its many attractions, has provided subjects for many painters, including Corot, Ingres, and Turner.
This topic springs from people asking why she has not taught for a long time and why she decided to teach this summer in Italy. Connie will show images of her own art from childhood, student days and current work in conjunction with her exhibit at the Dowling Walsh Gallery. She will talk about various ways to learn and teach that exist in schools, colleges, museums, workshops, copying masters, self taught artists, apprenticeships, etc. Q & A in the Strand following the talk.
We are now able to share Connie’s artist talk at the Rockland Strand on June 7, 2014. Her topic springs from people asking why she has not taught for a long time and why she decided to teach this summer in Italy. Connie shows images of her own art from childhood, student days and current work in conjunction with her exhibit at the Dowling Walsh Gallery. She talks about various ways to learn and teach that exist in schools, colleges, museums, workshops, copying masters, self taught artists, apprenticeships, etc.
Connie Hayes was named a Fellow at the Vermont Studio Center, where she will join a select group of artists and writers in the month of April for intensive exploration within a dynamic culture of creativity across several disciplines. The Vermont Studio Center was founded nearly three decades ago in the town of Johnson to offer stimulation and opportunity among peers established in their careers. In addition to the Fellows, several students also attend the residency program at the Center. Connie will be joining an illustrious list of many celebrated writers and painters among Fellows who have participated over the years.
Connie Hayes‘s artist talk is now available online! The illustrated talk, “Photography as Sketchbook: Exploring Gesture”, was given Tuesday, July 17, 2012 at The Strand Theater in Rockland, Maine.
Painting and photography have long been richly intertwined. In her talk, Connie describes how and why she uses photography in her process; photography’s relation to her paintings; and the power and limitation of the camera and other optical devices.
In conjunction with Connie Hayes exhibition, “Abandon, Absorption, and Entrancement,” at Dowling Walsh Gallery from July 6 – July 29, 2012.
Connie Hayes will give an illustrated talk, “Photography as Sketchbook: Exploring Gesture”, at 4pm, Tuesday, July 17 at The Strand Theater, 345 Main Street, Rockland, ME, one block from the Gallery. Painting and photography have long been richly intertwined. Connie will describe how and why she uses photography in her process; photography’s relation to her paintings; and the power and limitation of the camera and other optical devices.
The talk is free and open to the public. Connie Hayes will be at the gallery after the talk to answer any additional questions. The gallery will be open until 6pm after the talk.
Connie Hayes‘s show, “Abandon, Absorption, and Entrancement,” was reviewed in Fine Art Connoisseur magazine and American Art Collector magazine this month.
An excerpt from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine’s August 2012 article, “Hayes has indeed been watching closely as the children around her interact with each other and with adults. Occasionally unnerving but always compellingly composed and expertly crafted, these canvases evoke Porter in a darker mood, the pulsing energy of Eric Fischl’s adult scenes, and the not-always-flattering insights delivered by Jack Beal and Alice Neel. Though these were clearly made by the same hand that has given us so many years of landscapes and interiors, there is a different energy here. It will be fascinating to see what Maine’s children, and collectors, make of them this summer.” To download a full copy of the article, click here: Connie Hayes Fine Art Connoisseur.
An excerpt from American Art Collector magazine’s July 2012 article, “What Hayes saw when observing these children was an ability to become completely absorbed in a moment – whether it be while eating, playing or reading…” To download a full copy of the article, click here: Connie Hayes American Art Collector.
Connie Hayes is widely admired and regarded for her color-rich paintings emphasizing light and shadow and the underlying geometry forms within her harmonious compositions. Her subjects range from boats and water to studies of interiors and still lives. For over twenty-five years, she has returned to paint on Vinalhaven Island, the source of her most recent work. "I have had a crush on Vinalhaven since 1996," she says. "Vinalhaven's landmarks, traditions, and landscapes remain reassuringly unchanged." The light, shapes, and colors of the island's environment, its working waterfront, and the village populated with Mansard roof buildings are an endless font of inspiration for her. "Those sights and sensations animate my memory as I paint and draw Vinalhaven back in my mainland studio."
Hayes received her MFA from Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia and Rome, her BFA from Maine College of Art in Portland, and her BA from the University of Maine. She received a fellowship to attend the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1989. Born in Gardiner, Maine, she taught and served in administration at Maine College of Art for 15 years, including as interim Dean of Faculty. In 2003, she was awarded an honorary doctorate in fine arts from Maine College of Art. Her work is in numerous public and private collections across the United States. It was featured in a major solo exhibition, Painting Maine: Connie Hayes and the Borrowed View, at the Farnsworth Art Museum in 2004 and has been shown at the Ogunquit Museum of Art, the Portland Museum of Art, the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, and the National Academy Museum, New York, among other institutions. She lives and works in Rockland, ME.
“In all respects, Connie Hayes is a fearless, intuitive painter. Her highly colorful, strongly stroked canvases look like the result of an orderly process of sketches, underdrawing and application of paint. In reality, although she sometimes uses such aids before she approaches the easel in her capacious studio, most of the time she starts work on a blank canvas, wielding a 3 to 4-inch wide brush to get going. Then, as she says, she “dives in,” composing the rest of the picture, much of which she may have thought out in her head, balancing images and colors to achieve a satisfactorily aesthetic final result. On some occasions, she says, “the paint speaks to me and I go off in unexpected directions. I like surprises.” This is an extremely intense exercise; Hayes says she gets into a “zone” until the work is finished or set aside for future amendments. Her subjects range from boats and water to communities viewed from ships or roads, to backyards, house interiors and floral still lifes. “I like not being pigeon-holed, Hayes says. Her brightly hued colors, which often have nothing to do with the actual look of the original building or boat, are chosen with deliberation, depending on what role she wants the painted object to play in the overall composition. Her radiant blues, blazing reds, and sunny yellows make ordinary scenes come alive and help draw viewers into the painting. Often of late she has utilized more muted colors to achieve the results she seeks. After a long stint as a teacher and administrator at the Maine College of Art, Hayes has worked at the top of her game since moving from Portland to Rockland in 2005, about half the period covered by this exhibition. Much of her art results from her “Borrowed Views” project, in which she spends up to a week painting in and around the homes of friends all over Maine. Ever trying new approaches to her art, mindful of art historical precedents and armed with a spirit of adventure, Connie Hayes has many interesting paintings ahead of her. Whether borrowing views or moving about on her own, it will be interesting to see what this thoughtful, gifted painter achieves in the years ahead.”
- Stephen May for “A Decade of Views” exhibition, Dowling Walsh Gallery, September 2009
