Almanac

"Painting in distinct, incomplete layers allows me to explore the idea of concealing and revealing - an active process of choosing what to present outwardly and what to keep under the surface. Even though this tends to be an additive process, I am working with the notion of excavation as well. I imagine that by painting, I am something like an archeologist toiling away to reveal hidden, long-forgotten information."

Jen Wink Hays

Uprise Art is pleased to present Almanac, a solo exhibition of paintings by Jen Wink Hays. She examines the complexity of networks in imagined vast oceans of abstract free-floating forms and interlinked landmasses. In Hays’ solo show with Uprise Art in 2014, titled Fathom, landscapes were excavated and cut, exposing a layered terrain below the surface. In Almanac, Hays pulls back. She continues her investigation of micro and macro systems, but from an aerial view. Forms in a field and patterned farmland is obscured with a large gestures of color, only glimpses peeking through the cloud-like cover. Hays’ transition from working in gouache on paper to painting with oil on canvas further illuminates her approach to context, negative space, the surrounding substance that envelop the colorful forms within. Through the materiality of oil, these spaces become even more specific, and take on a character and quality of their own.

Download press release