Jaiden Haley

Artist Statement

In high school I found an old SD card containing hundreds of photos from 2000-2005, all taken by my parents. While working towards my BFA, in the search of personal resources that could add more intimate meaning to the things I was creating, I started utilizing these photographs as references for my paintings, exploring my perceived childhood memories related to what was pictured. In my painting process I take one or two images and alter them physically through paining, layering, and combining to reflect my own emotional associations and congruencies to my adult life. In the last two years I've expanded on this practice, compiling photographs that I've taken over the years and introducing them into my paintings alongside the older images in order to convey relationships between the past and present. At its core, to me making art has always been about problem solving. It's about asking 'How can I turn this idea or image or feeling into something tangible that will resonate with other people?'.