Happy Crying: The Art of Rachel Hayden Balances Tension With Whimsy
A fine balance of light, dark, serious, and silly, the paintings of Rachel Hayden are the culmination of her life experiences, expressed through peculiar motifs, alluring symmetry, and disassociated figures. There is at once something inviting, yet withdrawn, about this work. Her whimsical critters and plants don’t at all deflect from these atmospheres of tension—rather, they willingly watch and partake. Here we delve a little deeper into her bemusing imagery, as she shares what it means to her personally, and how she manages to juggle art and life in general.
Zara Kand: What’s your home environment like? And what led you to where you are now?
Rachel Hayden: I moved from Baltimore to Brooklyn in March of 2020, planning to get a job as a nanny, but the Covid lockdown started quickly after. I hadn’t found a studio in Brooklyn yet, so I just made works on paper in my pretty small studio apartment that I was sharing with my boyfriend and our cat. It was a mess and a stressful time, but I look back on it fondly now. Fortunately, selling those works on paper helped get me through the pandemic, which gave me the confidence to spend the next couple years focusing on my art full time. Actually at the time it felt like my only choice. Plus, we had moved to NYC mostly because my boyfriend is a musician and I’m an artist, so it was a now-or-never-might-as-well-try type of situation. And it was great for a few years, but I did start running out of money eventually. In 2023 I got a full-time job as an assistant for another artist, so now I do my best to juggle between that work and making my own work at night and on weekends.
ZK: Sounds like having some amount of limitation has forced you to become more resourceful. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing?
RH: Having less time definitely makes the time I have more valuable, and I appreciate my time in the studio more than ever. And working for another artist has taught me new things and made me approach my work a little differently. I try to treat my own art with more
care and attention to detail now, like I would if it were someone else’s. Both my apartment and my studio are pretty small, so I think the way I have to cram things to fit into the space I have is an influence for my paintings. I have to try to puzzle-piece everything together into the rectangle I have available to me.
“I THINK MY BEST PAINTINGS (OR AT LEAST MY FAVORITE PAINTINGS) ARE THE ONES I PAINT TO MAKE MYSELF LAUGH.”
ZK: Can you share with us some of your childhood experiences that may have influenced the way you create art, or made you decide to be an artist in the first place?
RH: I love that you ask this because childhood is a huge influence for me. I was really lucky to have a mom who encouraged my art making from a very young age. When I was around preschool age she let me take over the dining room as a little art studio. She’d buy me reams of computer paper and I’d draw on every sheet, front and back, and leave them all over the floor like a pile of leaves (not that dissimilar from how my studio looks now). I used to draw variations of the same images over and over again (also similar to my current process). I remember I had this character I used to draw that I called “the bun lady,” a woman with her hair in a bun on top of her head. I don’t think I thought of them this way at the time, but they ended up being pretty accurate portraits of my future self.
Before I moved to New York I had a job leading tour/studio workshop programming for babies and kids under five years old at an art museum in Baltimore. I hadn’t intended to get into early childhood education, but I started part time at the museum right after college, and it ended up being a big influence on my work. I used art in the museum to talk to kids about feelings and the world around them. I grew to appreciate the works in the collection that had nameable shapes and colors, little hidden details to find, and relatable emotions. It might sound silly, but I do consider how I could discuss my own work with babies. It was also inspiring to watch kids approach art making with such fearlessness and enthusiasm. They’d sit down at a blank piece of paper and just start right away, just enjoying the process of making something. That’s the energy I try to bring to my own work. Even if something turns out bad, I don’t want to overthink myself out of making it.
ZK: There is something playful yet moody about your work. You paint lots of colorful butterflies and florals, yet their facial expressions seem to fluctuate. Do these elements tend to symbolize your personal emotional state?
RH: I like to imagine human personalities for things like fruits, flowers, and butterflies. Like, two roses in a vase being in love; or oranges that are pissed off to be crammed into a bowl; or I like to imagine that a butterfly might be proud of me. To me it’s kind of like imaginary conversations or fights you have with yourself when you’re alone. I think all the subjects of my paintings—being either myself or inanimate objects—speak to a sense of isolation (or on the flip side, independence or self-reliance). I think a lot of the choices I make in a painting are in an attempt to take control. In the painting I can control how others (in the form of flowers, fruits, etc.) interact with me. And I can create balance. Everything can fit together just right. I also try to be really in control of how I use color, because color is what sets the atmosphere of a painting. It’s like the air of a painting. Sometimes I’ll do a pink or gold day version, and a darker blueish night version of the same painting—to see what happens.
I HAVE TO TRY TO PUZZLE-PIECE EVERYTHING TOGETHER INTO THE RECTANGLE I HAVE AVAILABLE TO ME.”
ZK: We’ve also been noticing some contemplative-looking figurative works lately. Are these self-portraits?
RH: Some definitely look more like me than others, but yes, all self-portraits! I got an airbrush a few years ago and I did a lot of self-portraits to practice using it, and ended up doing a solo show of black and white airbrush self-portraits, a lot of them showing me in water. The medium really lent itself well to rendering reflections on water and misty air. I made most of the work while I was in a transitional stage in life (running out of money, creatively blocked, going back to working a full-time job—and for some reason also training to run a marathon). Working on the paintings gave me a peaceful imaginary place to sit still or float or practice making funny faces. My goal with the next body of work is to make sillier choices. I think my best paintings (or at least my favorite paintings) are the ones I paint to make myself laugh.
ZK: What are you working on right now?
RH: Lately I’ve been working on pieces for an upcoming solo show that I think have been influenced a bit by movies I’m watching. Not necessarily by the movie itself but by thinking about myself as a character in a movie and how I’d like to portray myself, and what kind of scenes would be included in the story of my life. I’ve been working on capturing a wider range of facial expressions in my paintings so I like looking for examples of how a slight tweak of the angle at the corners of the mouth or a little squint of an eye can really change an expression— like the difference between happy crying and sad crying, or between a grin and a grimace. I really love a laugh–cry combo situation, probably because I do a lot of both. I just finished a laugh–cry painting about a time I got a nosebleed at Bryce Canyon on a family trip we took to Utah. It’s too long of a story to tell here but it was a moment my sister and I still talk about all the time. Definitely would put it in the movie of my life.*
This article appears in Hi-Fructose Issue 72. Support what we do and get the full issue here.
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