Ruby Friday | Sculptor Stephen Hayes
Open To The PublicHayes, a Durham native currently teaching sculpture at Duke, will talk about his journey as an artist and his work, including his touring memorial to African lives consumed by the Atlantic slave trade.
About Ruby Fridays
Ruby Fridays are casual art talks offered at noon most Fridays during the semester in the Rubenstein Arts Center’s Ruby Lounge. Speakers include Duke faculty and students who are creating or exhibiting work in the Ruby, visiting artists from far and wide, and local creatives. Learn about the amazing art being created on Duke’s campus, the behind-the-scenes aspect of the creative process, careers in the arts, and more. A free lunch is included!
About the Speaker
Stephen Hayes was born in North Carolina and raised to the idea that anything is possible. His artistic interests and skills were formed in childhood, when his mother, Lender, gave him a full size workbench and encouraged him to get creative with old mechanical parts she brought home from work.
Hayes’s current work fuses the past and the present. The common thread is capitalism, the commodification of human beings, and the subsequent brainwashing effects. Recurring imagery creates a thread between individual pieces in his repertoire and lets him speak directly to larger societal issues that are rooted in the racial structuring of society.
Hayes earned his BFA in Visual Communication from North Carolina Central University in 2006. Following summer studies at New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, he entered the MFA program at Savannah College of Art and Design, receiving his degree in May, 2010.
Hayes is currently Brock Family Visiting Instructor in Studio Arts in Duke’s Art, Art History, and Visual Studies Department. His MFA thesis exhibition, Cash Crop, continues to tour, with new elements added at each stop. He is creating new work while also reinvigorating sculpture in Duke’s studio arts curriculum.