"Raised in Maine and currently living in Philadelphia, Hays’ forms—dispersed in expanses that both surround and unite them—can be seen to reference both the open field she walked between her house and her grandparents’ in Maine as a child, and the urban landscape that surrounds individual buildings in Philadelphia. In Hays’ painting Dreams and Things, marigold-yellow polygons and orbs of spring green radiate from beneath a subtle field of gray-pink.
...Rendered in a palette reminiscent of the pale intensities of fellow Mainer Lois Dodd, the forms in the painting levitate in peaceful balance with the field that weights them from above, tilting the eye in and out of the painting’s spaces. Hays’ own dramas of space, color, and form hold the intensities of color and field in breathless suspension." READ FULL ARTICLE