Ivey Hayes Artwork

Ivey Hayes is perhaps one of the most prolific and most well-loved North Carolina artists of his time. His simplistic way of capturing the rustic scenes of his youth bring back a sense of nostalgia and fondness for life in the south.

Ivey passed away in 2012, but he left behind a catalog of his work. Paintings that depicted exaggerated forms doing the most mundane of tasks, shucking oysters, catching fish, picking cotton, casting a fishing net, and the scenes of his youth spent in Jazz clubs; musicians with their fingers on piano keys, brass saxophones, and sliding up and down a harmonica.

The style of his work in indistinguishable, the incredibly bright colors blending together as if they belonged, the lack of facial features on his subjects, but most importantly a love of the most ordinary, everyday experiences.

Widely regarded as one of North Carolina’s most treasured artists, Ivey’s work has been exhibited in places such as Washington, D.C., Boston and New York as well as various galleries and private collections in the United States.

Ivey’s love of North Carolina and it’s inherent beauty shows through in all of his paintings, “I had a love for the pencil and to draw things, so it was something that was in me that I had to do. I didn’t have a choice. I loved it. I walked it. I talked it. I dreamed it. Everything was like art. It was like life for me. I didn’t even have to push myself. It was in me, it took hold of me and all I had to do was just do.”