September 14, 2024
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January 5, 2025
Best known for his work in the traditions of wood carving and carpentry, Dallas-born, New York-based artist Hugh Hayden builds sculptures and installations that explore the idea of the “American Dream.” Reconstructing familiar things like Adirondack chairs, household furniture, or basketball hoops using wood and other materials, Hayden transforms these signifiers of leisure, family, and athletics into surreal and somewhat sinister objects. Many of his vernacular sculptures are covered in hand-carved thorns or unwieldy branches that imply pain or difficulty to those who try to inhabit them—a metaphor for the fraught pursuit of achievement and status. In other works, Hayden leaves readymade objects intact, only to cover them in tree bark, ultimately concealing recognizable status symbols. Likening bark to both armor and camouflage, Hayden uses it to show how clothing can be similarly deployed as a shield against racial prejudice or as a way of blending in or passing.
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