janna hayes
An emerging artist based in the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales, Janna Hayes work consists of large, expressive landscapes and abstract pieces.
Janna's practice examines the relationship individuals have with nature and the way in which we turn to specific landscapes for solace, grounding and rejuvenation. Our identity is tied to a certain place as we develop our sense of self against that set landscape. As we move through life it is this same environment to which we return to draw , inspiration, hope and energy.
Painted primarily in bitumen and oil paint on paper, Janna's work reflects a deeply personal journey of moving through grief in a foreign landscape and learning to challenge one's own self-narrative in order to find beauty and connection in the unfamiliar.
Bendemeer Art Prize | Winner, Major Art Prize. April 2023
Arts North West | Microgrant (professional development). October 2022
Armidale Art Show | 2nd Place "Blue Bottle" Acrylic on canvas. Summer 2021
“Throughout drought, bushfires and the recent pandemic I have considered what it is to seek solace in a landscape starkly different from the one in which your idea of self lives.
The process of finding oneself in and seeking connection to a new environment is profound because it impacts upon our very idea of who we are. Adapting that idea or that belief in oneself can be a confronting experience. In my current practice I am wrestling with the bittersweet process of doing just this. I endeavour to convey the kaleidoscope of beauty, strength, fragility and grief that nature reflects back at those who bathe.
In 2018 I moved my young family to Armidale in regional New South Wales, Anaiwan country. Having lived my life by the ocean, the move to a landscape raked dry by drought, high up on the Northern tablelands where frosts continue into November came as a shock. For months we lived with the count-down to day zero, anxiously counting every drop of water.
The drought was followed by bushfires, at times all 3 roads out of town blocked. The dry land burning up. The smoke was so thick in town you had to turn your headlights on at midday. And then came the pandemic.
Like many Australians I faced these crises at the same time as trying to live a life and raise a family. We lost a dear friend to cancer, my Dad was diagnosed with emphysema and my brother developed PTSD after making it out of a mine collapse alive. I turned to nature, hiking the surrounding national parks to find solace. I climbed Cathedral Rock, explored the ancient Gondwana forests in New England National Park and found a personal place of peace in Gara Gorge to return to time and time again.
To find this solace, I had to overcome my own firmly held personal narrative of being someone bound to the ocean and the tropics. I had to let go of my own idea of self in a process I found to be confronting but ultimately rewarding. In expanding my own personal narrative and developing a relationship with a new landscape I connected with something greater. Ultimately oneness can be found in any place... but it must be sought.
It is this deeply personal, yet universal relationship with our natural world that I aim to represent in my landscapes.
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