The Arts & Business Council, Blackbird Media, and F&M Bank have teamed up to present the Artist of the Week on The Nashville Sign. This week’s featured artist is Jodi Hays.
Jodi is an accomplished abstract painter living and working in Nashville. Born in Arkansas, she credits the landscape and material vocabulary of the American South as influences to her style. She adds texture and expression to her pieces by incorporating reclaimed textiles, fabric and cardboard. The grid systems she creates with these materials serve as a scaffold for repeated patterns.
“I come from the American South, a place where the kitchen and pharmacy are the same room. In many ways, I see my work as that same room—an expansive space for building and coming together.”
Jodi exhibits widely across the United States. Her work has been shown at the Wiregrass Museum, Stoveworks Museum, the Brooks Museum (Memphis), Red Arrow Gallery, David Lusk Gallery, Labspace, Tiger Strikes Asteroid (GVL), Fisk University, Browsing Room, L Ross Gallery, Curb Center at Vanderbilt University, Grizzly Grizzly, Boston Center for the Arts and Cooper Union.
She is a 2019 Finalist for the Hopper Prize, and is the recipient of grants from Sustainable Arts Foundation, the Individual Artist Fellowship from the Tennessee Arts Commission, and the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation. Residencies include The Cooper Union School of Art and Vermont Studio Center. Her work is documented in catalogues and has been published in New American Painting and Hyperallergic, and positively reviewed in publications such as ArtForum International, New Art Examiner, Number Inc. Magazine, the Nashville Scene and Two Coats of Paint.
Her paintings can be found in many public and corporate collections including the J Crew Group (New York), Nashville International Airport, National Parks of America, Gordon College (MA), the Tennessee State Museum, among others.
To learn more about Jodi Hays and her work, visit her website here.
Want to be featured on The Nashville Sign? Visual artists working in any medium, who are members* of the Arts & Business Council at the Basic Level ($30 annually) or above, are eligible to apply for Artist of the Week on The Nashville Sign.
*Those unable to become members due to financial barriers can be granted a waiver. Contact us at [email protected] to be confidentially considered for a waiver.