James L. Hayes
A Score of Road Bowles, 2021/2025
Irish oak, laser etching, cast iron
Artist Statement
My creative art practice aims to reinvest a modernist sculptural language, whilst exploring aspects of casting processes, as a means by which to interrogate the boundaries between artist / artisan, the ‘ready-made’ and the ‘art object’. My sculptural works, installations and film works aim to draw out the often-incongruous relationships between finished art objects, and the industrial aspects of the processes that produce these ‘revered’ objects. This research-based activity also highlights an art historical agenda,through the referencing of key creative influences, such as the acclaimed Welsh Artist Barry Flanagan.
This referencing or re-imagining is brought together with his broader research interests that range from contemporary interpretations of sculptural legacies, to site-specific interventionist works that draw from traces of significant pasts and histories.
Previous research interests have included works that refer to industrial archaeology and to other environmental concerns and social and economic conflicts. These themes are also explored through multi-disciplinary and sensory-based, sculptural installations. In a recent number of works, the use of the multiple is a recurrent feature of my practice, arising in a variety of forms and materials both resistant and non-resistant. My studio practice is activated through the production of both gallery-based works and installations whilst also engaging in production of large-scale public artworks, site specific works and interventions.
Artist bio
James L Hayes is a contemporary visual artist and university educator based in Cork, Ireland. With a multi-disciplinary practice spanning sculpture, print, installation, cast iron performance, film, and large-scale public art, Hayes’ work critically engages with the processes and histories of object-making.
His recent projects re-investigate modernist sculptural languages through the lens of casting technologies, questioning the boundaries between artist, artisan, and art object. Central to Hayes’s practice is an exploration of the often paradoxical relationship between refined art objects and the industrial processes behind their creation. His work frequently references and reimagines these production methods, drawing connections between materiality, cultural memory, and conceptual form.
He has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally, with recent works on view at Hunt Museum Open, Limerick , The Festival of High Temperatures (Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art & Design, Wroclaw, Poland), The National Sculpture Factory (Cork), Centre Culturel Irlandais (Paris), The Glucksman Gallery (Cork), The Royal Hibernian Academy (Dublin), Caponi Sculpture Park (Minnesota, USA), MART Gallery (Dublin), La Salle College of the Arts (Singapore), UNO Gallery (New Orleans, USA), Art Market Budapest, and SUPERMARKET Art Fair (Stockholm, Sweden).
Hayes has participated in prestigious residencies including the Sloss Metal Arts Program at Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark (Alabama, USA), the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, and the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA). He is a recipient of multiple awards from the Arts Council of Ireland, Culture Ireland, and Creative Ireland.
And is a graduate of TUS/Limerick School of Art & Design, De Montfort University (Leicester), and University College London (UCL), and in 2025 he was awarded Fellow Status with HEA in the UK. Hayes currently lectures in Sculpture at the Munster Technological University’s Crawford College of Art & Design in Cork.
