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Paula Hayes

Bio

Paula Hayes was born in 1958 in Concord, Massachusetts, and lives and works in New York. She is visual artist and designer and a recurring theme in her work is the connection of people to the natural world. Her current medium is garden making.

She received a BS from Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York, and, in 1989, an MFA in Sculpture from the Parsons School of Design, New York. To help support her graduate studies in the late 1980s, she merged her art with a gardening business. Since then, she has worked with ephemeral and organic mediums. She continues to question the idea of living plants as authored artworks with her series of glass terrariums. In this body of work, plants are literally self-contained in unique hand-blown glass containers, whose biomorphic forms project a strong psychological relationship with the human form. Roots, plants and objects within the terrarium help shape and contour the vessel, pushing and defining its form. Working above and below the soil level, she exposes the ever-changing workings of a living system. She has exhibited her works all around the world including her solo and group exhibitions at Museum of Modern Art (2010), The Museum of Art and Design (2014),  Madison Square Park (2015), all in New York; and in such events as at the Museum of Contemporary Art (2009), Taipei; in Glasstress (2011), Venice; at Design Miami/Basel (2013); and The Armory Show (2015), New York. Her work has been featured in ArtForum, Art in America, The New York Times, Interior Design, and House & Garden.

Vertical Giant Terrarium, 2008/2009

Hand blown glass with custom planting

147.3 x 35.6 cm

Glasstress 2011

Paula Hayes - Vertical Giant Terrarium
Paula Hayes - Vertical Giant Terrarium
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