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Heather Baumbach's work is inspired by her community, her travels, and the beauty of everyday life. She enjoys working with her hands, creating works notable for their deft finish and tactile nature. Her visual art has been exhibited at The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, The Wiregrass Museum of Art, The Georgine Clark Alabama Artists Gallery, Lowe Mill Arts, and The Charles W. and Norma C. Carroll Gallery at Marshall University. In addition to art shows in Alabama, she has participated in juried festivals and exhibitions in Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, Florida, West Virginia, and Missouri. She also holds over 20 years of design and production experience in stage, television, and film, her credits including The Cherry Lane Theatre, The Theater Outlet, The Santa Fe Opera, The Los Angeles Opera, Maine State Music Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Carsey-Warner Productions, and Comedy Central. Heather holds a BFA in Costume Design from UNCSA and an MFA in Visual Art from Lesley University.
tRACY hAYES is a mixed media artist who has been showing since 2012. A native of Montreal who has lived in US since attending University of NH (BA, French ’93), Hayes earned a BFA from NH Institute of Art ('12) and recently completed an MFA in Visual Art at Lesley University College of Art + Design ('21). Hayes lives and works in Morrisville, VT.
First Friday Reception
September 1st, 2023
Exhibit Gallery
Artist Statement
Baumbach and Hayes combine their visual languages in a gestural interplay of their works for this initial installation. An extension of a shared interest in the embodied as guide to resultant imagery, dictated by the need of the body and of the hand, works emerge as lattice-like, structural, and above all, governed by an internal ordering logic. Lilting and intertwining, shapes expand and contract over and again as they seemingly gather strength from within and gain ground, tentatively at first and then with increasing speed.
Works like Baumbach’s Collapse and Hayes’ Obliteration Scrolls rise out of the depths, offshoots and offsprings expanding, gathering all surrounding in an effort to both assert presence and convey primacy. But there are coveted moments withheld, intimate pockets closely guarded from the viewer. Combined, the works of Baumbach and Hayes further blur the access points, complicated by the superimposed relationships of Baumbach’s forms to Hayes’ mark-making. One acts as protective armor while the other undergirds, the works coalesce and offer the viewer a new interpretation of interdependence - as akin to the relationship of skin and sinew to the vascular system.