Hays is a Tennessee-based artist whose work explores the material vocabulary of painting filtered through visual habits of the American South. She 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. She 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 with 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.

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.