Under the vast Southwestern sky, Arlene LaDell Hayes continues to defy artistic categorization. From her studio in a small village northwest of Santa Fe, this remarkable artist moves fluidly between mediums, styles, and dimensions with a rare creative dexterity that has defined her career since 1979.
“As Oscar Wilde said, ‘Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative,’” Hayes notes. “When I first read that I knew exactly what he meant. There are so many ways to express yourself and so many mediums to do it with.”
Hayes’ artistic journey began in the stark landscapes of the Texas panhandle, where the region’s minimalist beauty and expansive horizons shaped her early visual vocabulary. These formative influences still echo through her work decades later, even as her repertoire has expanded far beyond those initial inspirations.
Dimensional Shapeshifter
Unlike many artists who find a signature style and remain within its comfortable confines, Hayes has deliberately pursued artistic evolution. Her early career as a sculptor established her masterful command of three-dimensional form, particularly in bronze works featuring Native American themes with both realistic and historically accurate representations.
This foundation in sculptural thinking gives her two-dimensional work a distinctive spatial quality. Rather than abandoning her sculptural sensibilities when she transitioned to painting, Hayes transformed them, creating canvases that seem to breathe with dimensional life.
Dream Cartographer
Perhaps most compelling among Hayes’ diverse body of work are her surrealist acrylic paintings, particularly the mesmerizing Spirit Warrior and Star Traveler series. These otherworldly compositions map territories that exist beyond ordinary consciousness.
“My dream states have always been extraordinarily vivid,” Hayes explains. “These paintings aren’t recreations but rather translations of experiences that occur in a different kind of reality.”
With bold calligraphic brushstrokes and luminous color palettes, these works create visual portals between worlds. While they acknowledge the 20th-century Surrealist movement, they transcend mere homage through Hayes’ distinctive visual language that blends Eastern philosophical concepts with Western artistic traditions.
What separates Hayes’ surrealist works from those of her predecessors is their remarkable accessibility. Despite their dreamlike qualities, viewers find emotionally resonant entry points—recognizable human forms and symbolic elements that invite personal interpretation rather than imposing fixed meanings.
Chromatic Choreographer
In striking contrast to her surrealist works, Hayes’ expressionistic landscapes and interior scenes display her versatility as a colorist. These oil paintings transform ordinary locations into extraordinary visual experiences through unexpected chromatic relationships and dynamic compositional choices.
“Color is its own language,” Hayes observes. “The same scene painted in different palettes tells entirely different stories.”
In these works, Hayes doesn’t merely represent locations—she reimagines them through a kaleidoscopic lens that captures emotional and sensory impressions rather than literal details. A Mediterranean marketplace becomes a symphony of vermilions and cobalts; a New Mexican mesa transforms into layers of ochre and violet dialogue.
Material Explorer
Hayes’ recent ventures into plaster abstractions and encaustic figurative works demonstrate her restless creative spirit. The plaster compositions, with their textural complexity and architectural qualities, create meditative spaces that change subtly with shifting light conditions.
Her encaustic figures, meanwhile, introduce a playful counterpoint to her more contemplative work. These whimsical creations in colored wax have a tactile immediacy and spontaneous quality that reveals yet another facet of Hayes’ artistic personality.
“Different materials ask different questions,” Hayes reflects. “Bronze wants to know about permanence and weight; encaustic is curious about transformation and impermanence; acrylics question the boundaries between dream and reality.”
Artistic Nomad
Throughout her extensive career, Hayes has maintained the perspective of an artistic nomad, never settling permanently into any single approach. This willingness to continually reinvent herself has resulted in a body of work that defies easy categorization yet maintains a recognizable sensibility across diverse expressions.
For collectors and admirers of Hayes’ work, this creative restlessness offers a special opportunity—the chance to witness an authentic artistic journey unfold across time, medium, and style. Each piece in her diverse portfolio represents not just an aesthetic achievement but a marker along a path of perpetual discovery.
As Hayes continues to explore new artistic territories from her New Mexico sanctuary, her work reminds us that the most compelling creative lives are those defined not by consistency but by courageous evolution.
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All images are courtesy of Arlene LaDell Hayes for Sorrel Sky Gallery.
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