A Q&A wITH RACHEl
HAyEs
Commissioned for the Georgia Museum of Art’s Jane and Harry Willson Sculpture Garden, the color-field canopies in “Looking Through a Sewn Sky” balance craft and contemporary landscape-based art. In the following Q&A with public relations intern Nabiha Rahman, Rachel Hayes shares insight into her creative process and sources of inspiration.
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Georgia Museum of Art: How do principles of abstract painting — such as color, composition and movement — influence your design process? How do they show up in your work? Rachel Hayes: For this particular installation the museum wanted me to reference some of the pieces in the collection, and they are all abstract. I can go through them and kind of explain what I’m drawn to in each of these pieces and how I’m referencing them. How about that? Sounds good. All right. So, this is a Joan Mitchell painting — it’s called “Close.” I love this color combo, the yellow next to purple next to a dark green or turquoise. Sometimes when you put colors together, it’s really pleasing to the eye. And then sometimes when you throw in an “off color” it makes you kind of curious, like, why did I do that? Why did they do that? But in the end, it actually makes something a little bit more interesting to look at. I’m not saying that this is what’s happening in her painting, but when I’m putting it through my filter and my colors that I use, it kind of feels like, okay, now it’s time to try to fit that turquoise in. And I don’t know if it wants to be here, but I’m going to make it work and kind of intuitively know that it’s going to make something more interesting if it’s a little uncomfortable.
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