American
b. 1947, Waterbury, Connecticut
Lives and works in New York, New York

Nancy Haynes' paintings, somewhat in the color-field tradition, demonstrate an ongoing concern with the potential of light. A contemplative emptiness exquisitely materializes in her paintings. She meticulously applies thin layers of oil paint and other mediums with broad bristle or foam brushes on very fine portrait-grade linen. The thinly loaded brushstrokes feather out to achieve subtle gradation of hues.

A most eloquent 2009 review by fellow abstract painter and art critic Justin Terry states, Over the last three decades, Nancy Haynes has developed a body of abstract work that utilizes a painting’s inherent materiality to cause a surface to shift from being a plane that is looked at, to becoming an area that is peered into. As one grasps the combination of flatness, space, and light in Haynes’ paintings, the subtleties of her sophisticated palette and tonal gradations reveal a seductive luminosity. Through this examination one’s mind empties out, leaving oneself in a contemplative state. Or perhaps better put, one becomes fully engaged in the moment – peering simply into the painting’s surface while marveling at the unique and nuanced light held by each work.

Nancy Haynes has had both commercial gallery and museum solo exhibitions across the United States and Europe since 1980. Her paintings have been acquired for the best public art collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, The Denver Art Museum in Colorado, and the UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California.