THE FOCUS View all posts from The Focus

"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."

— Jodi Hays, March 2021

Jodi Hays is a painter who has exhibited widely. A native of Arkansas, she is the recipient of grants from The Foundation for Contemporary Arts (New York), Sustainable Arts Foundation, an Individual Artist Fellow with Tennessee Arts Commission, and the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation. She is a 2019 Finalist for the Hopper Prize. Hays has exhibited in art fairs in New York and Miami including Affordable Art Fair and Art on Paper. Her paintings are internationally collected privately and can be found in many public and corporate collections including the JCrew Group (New York), Nashville International Airport, National Parks of America, Gordon College (MA), the Tennessee State Museum, among others. Her works have been shown at venues including at the Wiregrass Museum, Stove Works, Michael Price Contemporary (Boston), and the Brooks Museum (Memphis). Residencies include The Cooper Union School of Art, Vermont Studio Center, and National Parks of America.

Her work is documented in catalogues such as New American Painting (2021, South) and has been reviewed in ArtForum International, Hyperallergic, New Art Examiner, the Nashville Scene, Two Coats of Paint, Burnaway among others. She has been interviewed by Artist/Mother Podcast, Art In Res, and Mineral House Media. She has taught and curated extensively including the University of Massachusetts, Watkins College of Art, and Tennessee State University. Jodi lives and works in Nashville, Tennessee.

*images courtesy of the artist and Sam Angel Photography