Click here to see Martha Hayden's work

“Painting for me is both realistic and abstract. It is on that elusive edge between there and not there. At first glance everything is in place and then it all dissolves. What I want is for realism and abstraction to take turns. I want a painting sometimes very evocative of time and place, sometimes overwhelming in abstract, structural logic. I am also concerned with spaces.

It is analytic in terms of distance and volume, expressive, rhythmical, and fluid in terms of color. It is ordered volume, surprising color with a big interior space that draws the viewer in with logic of its own. I try to create excitement while ordering chaos. It is also about surface, about color and marks, about thick and thin paint, about using the tools of the craft. I try to make my shapes and color say something in them. I am concerned with the relationship between realism and rendering. Every mark, every color, every direction, changes everything done before. Each painting is a new work. I believe that my constructive, planar approach is a logical extension of cubism. My color is lyrical and intuitive, expressionist. I am a child of Cezanne, and I want to paint in that still unexplored and magical area where expressionism and cubism merge.”

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, BFA degree, 1961
Schule des Sehens, Salzburg, Austria, studied with Oskar Kokoschka, 1962
The University of Chicago, 1956-60
Bradley University, 1953-55
Instituto Allende, San Miguel, G.T.O. Mexico, 1957

She has won numerous awards during her lengthy career and has been in countless exhibitions over the years. Her artwork can be found in quite a few collections through out the USA, Canada, Brazil and Austria. Ms. Hayden is still active and lives in Wisconsin.