Peter Hay will be donating half of his proceeds from sales in this show to the San Juan Citizens Alliance.

The Friends of the Art Library are pleased to present a solo exhibit of artwork by DAC Exhibits Director, Peter Hay.

Peter Hay is a painter, printmaker, and conceptual artist. His work is based upon embellishments of current ecological issues, which could be described as environmental realism. Hay received his Associates of Art from Northern Oklahoma College, Bachelors of Art from Northeastern State University, and Master of Fine Arts from Louisiana Tech University, where he held a Full Teaching Assistantship and graduated as an Academic Excellence Honoree. As an arts administrator, Hay was Director of Development and Public Relations for Living Arts of Tulsa and is currently Exhibits Director of Durango Arts Center in Durango, CO. In addition, Hay has completed several murals, worked as a freelance artist, and has participated in multiple group and solo exhibitions both nationally and internationally. These include shows at the First Street Gallery in New York City, The Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, OK, the Louisiana State Achieve, the Palacio de Belles Artes, Rotunda in Manizales, Columbia, and Lessedra Art Gallery in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Artist Statement

I can remember when all I wanted to do was explore the drainage ditches that ran through my hometown. These concrete lined algae streams were veins of unharnessed “nature” flowing through the middle of small town America. My hometown was not big enough to have a zoo or the museums and activities of a larger city. It was big enough to keep a kid living a couple blocks from Main Street and too young to drive isolated from “wilderness”. The ditches were my chance to explore and make discoveries “in the wild”.

Once the childhood haze of imagination wore thin and the reality of my playground began to materialize, I found myself standing in a contrived stream and in the runoff of a dwindling town. Now all are eroded by years of shifting markets and ever-increasing globalization. The algae parted to reveal the cement bottom to the streams and the meadows south of town turned out to be oil sludge contaminated buyouts where houses once stood. These revelations, and the many more to come, form the foundation of the work I now make.

My work stems from a need to investigate the natural world, how I fit into it, and how it has come to be the way it is. Histories of environment or inhabitant are represented through research, action, and process. I moved to the mountains recently and these two series, Unearthed and Shroud, grew out of a curiosity in the power contained within something as benign in appearance as stone. Everything reacts when disturbed.

For additional info: http://peterhaystudio.com/Unearthing.html