Shaun Hayes: Artist Statement & Bio

The collection of plastic objects that inform Hayes’s sculptures are evocative of certain memories and feelings, capturing these ephemeral moments in time. Hayes contemplates the nature of today’s throwaway society and through the use of seemingly unimportant, everyday objects, humorously highlights the importance of being more conscious of the enduring impact waste has on the environment. Drawing on the aesthetics of traditional Chinese ceramics combined with contemporary objects, his adorned vessels echo a blending of past and present, old and new as well as illustrating the material similarities between plastic and ceramics.

Through methods of repetition, rearranging and joining of cast objects paired with a tonal colour palette, Hayes’s sculptures are reminiscent of fantastical and comical imagery whilst also highlighting the tensions of growing up in conversation with existing in a wasteful, thoughtless consumerist society.

Shaun Hayes is a ceramic artist who investigates the relationship between throwaway objects and their ability to instil a sense of reflection on memory, creating a deeply nostalgic and sometimes humorous representation of time and place.

Hayes received a Bachelor of Arts (Visual), with Honours majoring in Ceramics from the Australian National University School of Art in 2013. He was awarded an artist residency at Strathnairn Arts in July of 2014 and is still currently producing work there. His trips to Jingdezhen China in 2011 and 2013 continues to be an influence.

Shaun is represented by Stanley Street Gallery and was selected to represent them at the Sydney Contemporary Art Fair, Carriageworks Sydney in September 2018.

Most recently Shaun was selected as a finalist in the 2020/2021 Woollahara Small Sculpture prize.

Shaun Hayes: CV September, 2021