BALTIMORE, MD.- The Baltimore Museum of Art today announced it has named visual artist and landscape designer Paula Hayes as its first Landscape Artist in Residence. In this role, Hayes will develop the overall creative direction of the museum’s physical environment for the next two years, reengaging audiences with the institution’s landscape through her fresh vision. The BMA encompasses 7.5 acres, including two sculpture gardens, a historic building designed by John Russell Pope, several building additions, and adjacent lawns.
“We are very excited for Paula to lead the way in reactivating the BMA’s exterior areas through her expertise and ability to create art with the natural world,” said BMA Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director Christopher Bedford. “We are looking forward to providing more opportunities for our visitors to gather and connect with art beyond the museum’s walls.”
Hayes is best known for her blown-glass terrariums, botanic sculptures, and interactive spaces. Her work draws on the untouched, natural world to inspire her landscape designs, seeking to create spaces that are meant to feel like an oasis from over-stimulating, everyday-life environments. Her landscapes, as well as her sculptures and other living artworks, are notable for their organic, relaxed forms.
“Throughout my career I have worked with a mix of public and private spaces, but working with an institution like the BMA is a new endeavor for me,” said Hayes. “I am honored to have the chance to help shape the natural environment of such a prized community landmark and I look forward to collaborating on the vision for its renewed ecosystem.”
Paula Hayes (born 1958 in Concord, Massachusetts) is an American visual artist and designer who works with sculpture, drawing, installation art, botany, and landscape design. Hayes has lived and worked in New York City for over two decades and is known for her terrariums and other living artworks, as well as her large-scale public and private landscapes. A major theme in Hayes’ work is the connection of people to the natural environment, and much of her work is concerned with the care that is required to grow and maintain large and small-scale ecosystems. Hayes’ early works incorporated vegetation into sculptures and installations, and her repertoire has continued to expand beyond landscapes to include video, light fixtures, interior and object design, aquariums, and garden features. Her work, marked by its unmanicured appearance, lends a naturalness to her designed spaces, which notably include landscape design work for David Zwirner, Marianne Boesky, Daniel S. Loeb, the Klein Residence, Hauser & Wirth, and W Hotel South Beach. In 2010, Hayes was invited to create a botanical sculpture for the Museum of Modern Art’s lobby, taking inspiration from mating slugs. Five years later, she took over New York’s Madison Square Park with her Gazing Globes installation of illuminated orbs of varied sizes filled with discarded materials. She is also an inventor and a holder of two patents for innovations in gardening and landscape maintenance.
