Kathy Robinson-Hays: traveling light

(Dallas, TX) Ro2 Art is proud to present traveling light, a solo exhibition featuring new works by artist Kathy Robinson-Hays. The show will run from May 5 through June 2, 2018. There will be an opening reception held Saturday, May 5, from 7-10pm at Ro2 Art located at 1501 S. Ervay Street in Dallas’ Cedars neighborhood.

Through her vision of the landscape, Kathy Robinson-Hays references themes of fragility, transparency, the discarded and the forgotten. As an adoptee she sees all of us as tourists on this planet, who need to take better care of each other as well as our vacation home.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Kathy Robinson-Hays is a Canadian born, longtime Texas visual artist and art conservator/restorer. She and her husband, fellow artist Terry Hays, currently live in Duncanville, Texas and have worked side by side in their home studio for years. Kathy has had a lifelong interest in the conservation of objects, leading to her career at Brown Mountain Art Restoration in Dallas as a professional art and antique restorer/conservator specializing in porcelain and ethnographic objects. She received her B.F.A. Honors in painting from the University of Manitoba, and, after studying in Italy and New York, she obtained her M.A. in studio art from the N.Y.U. Venice Study Abroad Program. She has taken courses in Care of Textiles at the Campbell Center of Mount Carroll and The Conservation of Gilt Wood at the Smithsonian Institution. Her work has been included in New American Paintings, Studio Visits Magazine, and she was recently included in Peripheral Vision Issue 7, Salon 2017, curated by Georgia Erger. Her work has also been included in many juried shows and is included in private collections in Canada and the U.S. She is currently represented by Ro2 Art in Dallas.

ARTIST STATEMENT:
“For years I traveled back and forth from Dallas to Winnipeg, Canada my hometown. My parents were older when they adopted me and I was their only child. I loved and cared for them from afar as best I could, all the while still searching for my origins and biological parents.

“This small room installation is a kind of abstract self portrait of my memories of travel and loved ones. For many years I imagined myself to be a thousand different people from a multitude of landscapes until I was able to start finally deciphering where I was from.

“I work intuitively responding to my samples and discoveries and emotions at the moment. But the materials which have interested me forever are the silk organza, tulle, drafting film and wire, things that may change their shape in the future. Extreme close ups of nature, the studio and prior paintings are also constants in my way of working. I hone in on an area and try again. I suspect I am interested in collapsing boundaries between painting, photography and sculpture. I feel somehow compelled to make connections with things that don’t seem to belong together. I guess I want you to wonder what are you looking at, a painting, a photograph, a scarf, a skirt, a tracing.

“Themes of fragility, transparency, the discarded and the forgotten have been a connecting thread in my work. As an adoptee I see all of us as tourists on this planet, who need to take better care of each other as well as our vacation home.”

                                                                  - Kathy Robinson-Hays, 2018