Artist Talk: James L. Hayes

Irish artist James L Hayes will outline his creative art practice that aims to reinvest a modernist sculptural language, whilst exploring aspects of casting processes, as a means by which to interrogate the boundaries between artist / artisan, the ‘ready-made’ and the ‘art object’. His sculptural works, installations and film works aim to draw out the oft incongruous relationships between finished art objects, and the industrial aspects of the processes that produce these ‘revered’ objects. His research-based works also highlight an art historical agenda, through the referencing of key creative influences, such as the acclaimed Welsh artist Barry Flanagan. This referencing or re-imagining is brought together with his broader research interests that range from contemporary interpretations of sculptural legacies, to site-specific interventionist works that draw from traces of significant pasts and histories.

James will also briefly outline the concerns and aims of his ongoing iron casting project known as The IRON-R Project, held at The National Sculpture Factory in Cork in 2012, 2014 and 2018.

This artist talk is held as part of Sculpture Week 2019, which will be centred around the theme and title of ‘Floating Islands’.  ‘Floating Islands’ is a reference to what is known as the Great Pacific garbage patch - gigantic floating islands of waste plastic that has been gathering and travelling around the Pacific Ocean.

The overarching theme of ‘Floating Islands’ also refers to the shared understandings and relationships island communities may have to their environments. Through a series of intensive workshops, James L. Hayes will be working with diploma, BA and MA Fine Arts students to create a series of works with an array of found, gathered and fabricated material. The works are intended to consider ways to creatively use materials found in Southeast Asia in connection with materials conventionally/traditionally used in sculptural practices, as well as to relate to broader issues related to human-environmental interactions, the anthropocene, pressing global environmental issues and ecological changes.

Image credit: The Cellar (screen shot), Single Channel HD digital film, 12.5mins Edition 1/3, James L Hayes, 2016