Biography

Hayley Rata Heyes is a painter and poet based in her hometown, Ōtepoti / Dunedin.

Hayley is a self-taught oil painter. Her work embraces the two-dimensionality of painting by building up an image with flat blocks of bright colour. Her subject matter is hyper-local and often immediately recognisable to fellow Dunedinites; there could be a glimpse of the harbour, a George Street facade, or Flagstaff’s silhouette forming a horizon. 

Lines from Hayley’s poetry often feature within her paintings. This incorporated text offers another way into the subject matter; not explaining the image, but rather working in dialogue with it. Her writing has been published in literary journals, including Landfall, Takahē, and 1964 Magazine.

 

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