Moira Hayes
Moira Hayes
Website: https://www.moirahayes.com
Instagram: @jesusonthecrossfit
Bio: Moira Hayes was born and raised in London, Ontario. Hayes attended Bealart at H.B. Beal Secondary School for two years post high school graduation, where they completed the Foundation and Specialization programs. Hayes went on to attain an Interdisciplinary BFA from NSCAD University. Hayes was diagnosed with bipolar disorder upon attending University. This, along with a sibling’s diagnosis of Autism, largely inform their practice. Finding ways to navigate social relationships while emotionally disabled remain central to Hayes’s practice.
Artist Statement: My work is concerned with human actions, consequences, communication, and relationships. I examine these interrelations through board games and children’s books. In my research of games and how we learn to play them, I explore the intentions and meanings of how we interact with each other in the everyday, and attempt to understand the social rules we enforce for ourselves. I am fascinated by the concept of taking turns, chance, our ability to progress in difficult situations, and what winning or losing means in the long and short term for an individual.
Working with children’s printed matter (games and primer books) is an intentional step to break down complicated adult relations into simple terms, and it serves to set a state of mind for the viewer. These games and books are easy building blocks in a child’s development towards learning and using social cues, which become vital to fitting in and finding a space in society as an adult. The children in my work represent how we learn the positive and negative consequences of our actions and they serve to juxtapose naivettity with our adult actions. I further this concept with the use of fluxus scores, either presented as instructional cards in a gallery setting, or in public as vinyl installations.
I’m inspired by fluxus scores because they allow me to consider the structure of rules as negotiable within the scope of my work. Rules also inspire me because a game doesn’t function without rules; by perceiving our relationships, actions, and communications with others as sequences in a game, fluxus scores enable me to bend and side step established, societal codes.
While I work largely in sculpture, drawing, and writing, I view everything through a printmedia lens. My work appropriates pre-existing printed matter and uses traditional and new-age printmaking techniques to place these images and works alongside each other, hopefully inspiring a more dynamic visual and cerebral experience for the viewer.