Women's Art Association of Hamilton

Selected Works

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Sherry Hayes Biography

Art has been part of my life since early childhood. Being born and raised in the country on fifteen acres of forested wetland, it was easy to draw my inspiration from Nature and all of the beauty it has to offer the observer. Self-taught and with my love for everything within the natural world, I instinctively ventured into wildlife paintings, exploring animals, birds and the grandeur of the ‘wild’ outdoors.

While my interest in art never waned throughout my life, my focus for close to thirty years has been my landscape design business which, in of itself, employs my artistic abilities, albeit, in a different form. Throughout these busy years, I completed a handful of wildlife paintings, having several pieces chosen for Juried Art Exhibits.

As I continue to work with my landscaping clients, my love for painting has once again surfaced. It now has me exploring what the ‘canvas’ holds for me with a new and different direction and through a very different light. I have no doubt that the artist that has always been within me will continue to grow.

I am drawn to the purity of my subjects and have a fondness for creating true contrast between the subject and background. As such, I often create ‘vignette’ paintings. I enjoy the strength of the subject when presented in full colour against a pure white or black background. I appreciate this challenging technique as there is no ‘hiding’ ill-placed brushstrokes that can easily be camouflaged in a full background setting.

A visitor to a display of my vignette works once commented – ‘Your paintings allow the viewer to look past all of the normal clutter and just focus on the true subject. I thank you for that.’  It was a simple yet powerful acknowledgement of one of my favourite styles. To honour those kind words, I continue to strive for subject truth and clarity in each piece that I paint.

When creating full coverage paintings, I make every effort to ‘tell a story’, whether quickly understood, subtle, or with deep meaning. Whatever subject that I cover, my hope is that everyone will enjoy the true beauty of wildlife, nature, places or people as I see them and translate them through my art. My goal is to tell each ‘story’ from my heart and with inspiration from the love I have of all life great and small while I bring awareness to our vulnerable Flora and Fauna.

As I see it, all art begins with a vision. Whether an artist chooses to work in realism, modern, abstract or anything in between ~ there is always a vision. Sometimes the end result represents that exact vision. Other times the final piece takes on a new direction. Wherever the journey takes the artist, the most important aspect of any work of art is the true and honest interpretation of the subject as seen and created through the vision of the artist. My hope is that everyone will see my vision.