DVAA Member since 2027

Olive Hayes

2027 DVAA REsident

WEBsite: www.olivehayes.com

instagram: @olivemhayes

About:

Olive Hayes lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. Hayes' work plays with themes of grief, rebirth, love, and her experience as a lesbian. She earned her BFA from the Moore College of Art & Design in 2020. Her solo exhibition, The Many Faces of Olive Hayes, was presented at MARCH (New York, NY) in 2021. Her work has been included in The NOW at A WAY Gallery (British Columbia, Canada); To Whom Do I Owe the Power Behind my Voice? At Commonweal Gallery (Philadelphia, PA) in 2023; at PLATFORM with MARCH in 2024, Bye, Buy at Luster Gallery (Philadelphia, PA) in 2026, and Ides of March at MARCH in 2026. She has been published in NOVA, New American Paintings. Hayes had work presented by MARCH at the 2023 Dallas Art Fair and by Commonweal at Art on Paper in 2024.

Artist Statement:

I am a figurative oil painter exploring rebirth through a lesbian lens. I paint saturated, enlarged nude women moving through personified landscapes, using nature as both mirror and witness to their inner worlds. Through these figures, I investigate how we care for one another, how we grieve, and how we start again. The body is central to my practice. I treat it as fluid and malleable; an ever-changing form that shifts as we evolve. My work honors the softness required to remain open in a world that hardens us. Affirming that our bodies, like our identities, are in constant motion - reshaping, relearning, renewing. Within that flux, I explore devotion, resilience, and the ways that we choose to begin again.