In The Frame: Cork artist Ava Hayes on her new exhibition in Fermoy
Ava Hayes is an artist from Ballyvolane, Cork
Ava Hayes’ current exhibition at the Blackwater Valley Makers Art Centre in Fermoy is her first solo outing as an artist. However, she has already distinguished herself as one of Cork’s most dynamic new curators, working with Cork Craft & Design and the STAMP Festival of Creativity. This time last year, she was appointed Director of Cork Crafts Month.
“It was through my work curating Cork Crafts Month that I got to know the team at Blackwater Valley Makers,” says Hayes. “When they saw my paintings, they invited me to do a show.”
Hayes’ exhibition, Hold Your Breath, features five large abstract paintings and a work on video called It Comes in Waves. From Ballyvolane, Hayes experimented with different media while attending the Crawford College of Art & Design — she graduated in 2021, winning the Sample Studios Graduate Curatorial Residency and MTU’s Arts Office Residency — but it is only in the past few years that she has begun painting in earnest.
“After graduating, I signed up for a six week course in oil painting at St John’s College, and I fell head over heels for the medium,” she says. “By the time I started my masters six months later, I felt like a fully-fledged painter.”
Hayes continued painting while undertaking the year-long MA in Art & Process at the Crawford. “Doing the masters gave me time to work out what I wanted to do as an artist,” she says. “It was lovely to have that freedom and lack of pressure.”
Hayes had recently lost two of her grandparents. “I was very close to both,” she says. “They didn’t die of covid, but it was during the pandemic, which was a very weird time anyway. I was dealing with grief and emotions I’d never really experienced so strongly before. I wasn’t really able to talk about my feelings. So these paintings are very personal in that they explore the limitations of verbal communication, and my frustration with that.”
Hayes began collaborating with the dancer Inma Pavon and musician Cillian Plummer around the same time. “When I started working with Inma on a dance piece, we were trying to think of a wide open space to perform in, somewhere very quiet, and we both thought of the Docklands in Cork. Emma’s father died during covid, and she used to go down there a lot. It was the only place she was allowed to teach, as it was out in the open. As it happened, my grandfather used to work in the Docklands as well, and I had all these old analogue photographs from his time there.
“The video I’m showing at my exhibition is a three-minute recording of Inma’s performance, with Cillian’s music. My role on that was artistic director.”
Hayes traces her interest in art to her childhood. “I was very shy for a long time,” she says. “I spent most of my time reading and drawing. But luckily, my parents nurtured that, arranging for me to attend art classes out at the Lough. At secondary school, I was torn between going on to study art or speech and language therapy.”
In 2016, Hayes was named the national winner in ARTiculation Ireland, a public speaking competition organised by Lismore Castle Arts in Co Waterford to promote the discussion of art in schools. Trish Brennan, the Head of Fine Art and Applied Art at MTU Crawford College of Art and Design, was in attendance, and offered Hayes a place on the portfolio course at the college.
"That was what made me realise I could make a career of this. After completing the portfolio course, I went straight on to the Crawford after my Leaving Cert.”
These days, Hayes paints in a space at Sample Studios, in Churchfield. She is grateful to have found a full-time job so soon after finishing college.
“Particularly when it’s something that pairs so well with my own art practice,” she says. “It’s wonderful to be surrounded by like-minded people, and doing a job I love. That was something I worried about, leaving college. But it’s all worked out very well for me.”
- Ava Hayes, Hold Your Breath runs at the Blackwater Valley Makers Art Centre in Fermoy, Co Cork from January 20 to February 29 February. Further information: www.instagram.com/avahayesartwork
