Gregory Hayes Exhibition

Nancy Margolis Gallery

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Nancy Margolis Gallery presents Gregory Hayes’s third solo exhibition titled Dawn of a new day.

Hayes first studied art at the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design in Colorado. There a serendipitous encounter led him to the process that engages him today in the making of his paintings. In 2005 his teacher Clark Richert handed him a small drip bottle and said, “see what you can do with this.” Taking on the challenge, Hayes filled it with paint and began experimenting. On one occasion the bottle was left unwashed, and he later decided to use it anyway to execute a painting. This led to the unforeseen discovery that fresh paint and remnants left in the bottle, when mixed together and dripped out through the tiny opening, created surprising swirls and twists of color in each drip. From this revelation Hayes saw countless possibilities and began experimenting, leading him to create many diverse series of paintings over the past ten years. Each series relies on the commonality of process, but their overall unique character is drawn from the artist’s inner sensibilities accompanied by an exceptional gift for color.

In Hayes’s third solo exhibition his Amalgamation series will be shown by Nancy Margolis Gallery for first time as a group. These paintings are based on the concept of dripping paint as well as Hayes’s refined intuitive sense of color. His previous series, Color Array, which made up his first two solo exhibitions at Nancy Margolis Gallery, required a structured grid of quarter inch squares penciled onto the canvas, where each drip would be meticulously placed inside the grid to form a larger pattern of concentric squares. The Amalgamation series however, foregoes the grid, allowing a freer reign for the pigment to be dripped directly onto the canvas. The pervading tones in the paintings may appear prominently one color, but on close inspection there are many convex drips of unforeseen colors built up in each painting creating a quasi kaleidoscope effect in a field of radiant color.

Hayes will be exhibiting six new large-scale paintings, 60” x 70”, that explore the diversity of his technique and the dynamics of his use of color.

GREGORY HAYES is based in Brooklyn, New York. Hayes began studying art with original Drop City artist Clark Richert at the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, where he received his BFA in Painting and was named Most Distinguished Artist. He received his MFA in Painting from the City University of New York, Brooklyn College where he studied with Vito Acconci. Hayes has exhibited in renowned institutions throughout the United States including Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Rocky Mountain College, SCOPE Basel, Art Wynwood, MIAMI PROJECT, SCOPE Miami, and with the College Art Association (CAA) New York. In the fall of 2016, he had a solo exhibition in Europe for the first time with Francesca Antonini Arte Contemporanea in Rome, Italy. He has also been featured in numerous publications, including the Brooklyn Downtown Star, the Denver Post, the Huffington Post, and Art F City.