Kenneth Hayden is a Kentucky native born in Owensboro. His work is in the permanent collections of 21C Museum-Hotel, Ventas, Inc, Brown Forman, Atlas Brown, and many other corporate & private collections nationwide. He has been an artist-in-residence at Kunst in der Stadt, Mainz, Germany and participated in over sixty one-man and group exhibitions in the US and abroad. In 2010 he was included in two shows at mdh fine arts, New York, NY and was selected by juror Paul Klein, Chicago, IL for inclusion in “Art From the Heartland” at the Indianapolis Art Center. A Zephyr artist since 2004, Hayden lives and works in Louisville.
About photography:
“Photography, as we all know, deals with time. Capturing, examining, remembering, escaping, forgetting. I single out juxtapositions of shapes, light, color and texture that seem, in the blink of an eye, innately important to me. Often I feel that I am the only one to realize these fleeting shadows and reflections should be recognized and exalted.”
A professional photographer and artist since 1985, Hayden’s work has been published worldwide in magazines such as National Geographic WORLD, Time, Newsweek, Natural History, Smithsonian and used by corporations like GAP, Dupont, Nikon USA, Allied Signal, Union Carbide and General Electric, and exhibited internationally.
Photography:
from Refuge, Incinerator, 2012 “I made a trip to my boyhood home to visit family in rural Kentucky this past weekend. You never know what will make an impression on you. This is where we’d burn our trash. It’s taken on different construction, size and shape over time. But the placement and use are still the same 50+ years later. Nostalgic yet strange.”from: Florida Safari, 2012 “Florida Safari is a fabricated historical account of the past. Over time, facts can be distorted or reinvented to suit the needs of the present. Documentary photographers can manipulate their reporting in such ways as isolating persons in a crowd, choosing selective lighting or a particular lens to demonstrate their own creative visions and versions of history. Through contemporary photographs I create a past that never happened. Emulating the lower technology of early photographic equipment, materials and vision, I present fabrications of exploration and discovery while injecting elements available only through today’s computers and advanced cameras and lenses that hint at the false narratives presented.”
Recent Paintings:
“My current work features images of birds native to my childhood. Depicted as solitary entities, in small groups, or as distant flocks in flight, these birds are both subjects and catalysts advancing the movement and emotion in the picture. I often concentrate on creating paintings with limited color palettes, simplified shapes, and abstract elements to produce an unexpected visual energy. Utilizing a variety of media — inks, watercolors, gouache, acrylics or oils — and working either from self-produced photographic studies or manipulating found imagery, I create a moment to be experienced.Working in series, one piece informs the next. A dialogue between the works suggests avenues for reinvention. As I refer to previous pieces, I begin by identifying what I consider the essential ingredients, and then re-contextualize them into very different paintings. They have a lineage, but also branch off in divergent directions – keeping the newer work “new” while simultaneously maintaining a connective history.”
