Hugh Hayden 'Border States' Review in The Brooklyn Rail
14 November 2018
Hugh Hayden’s 'Border States' brings America’s domestic architecture to life in a series of seven painstakingly carved and pointedly macabre wooden sculptures. Prosaic objects—a front door, three iterations of a picket fence, a kitchen table, a stroller, and a crib—are transformed into wily subjects. The sculptures, which are made from trees harvested by the Texas-born artist along the border between his home state and Mexico, beg for both reflection on, and revision of, the latent narratives that rest within the familiar, quotidian forms. These synecdoches for a vision of the American dream are reframed and mutated into thorny renditions, menacing barriers.Image: Hugh Hayden, The Jones Part 3, 2018. Sculpted eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) with steel, 78 1/2 x 180 x 26 3/4 inches
