June 20, 2002 - June 5, 2003
Allan Hayes | Glimpsing the Eternal
500 12th Street, lobby.
Viewing Hours: Monday - Friday 7am - 7pm.
This exhibit is a collaboration between the Oakland
Museum of California and Shorenstein Realty Services.
Open and free to the public. BART, AC Transit and Wheelchair accessible.

Presented by the Oakland Museum of California Professional Services division

Professional Services Exhibition Archive

Allan Hayes, Hetch Hetchy Shore, 18" x 28"

Glimpsing the Eternal

We shall never cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time.
- T.S. Eliot

Photography is often considered one of the most direct and immediate mediums available to visual artists. Photographic in nature, Hayes’s striking images present an intimate fusion of the long histories of nature painting and photography with the post-modern painterly tradition. Rich with detail, his finely chosen compositions underscore the interplay of form and color. They mesmerize us, resonating within the deepest layers of our inner selves.

Hayes spends hundreds of hours on each image, enhancing subtleties to awaken this primal response. His urge to innovate is exemplified in the meticulous creative process that incorporates computer imaging with the traditional chemical baths of photo development. With a painterly lyricism and adroit application of technology, the artist carefully works the colors and emphasizes form to reveal a powerful experience.

This avant-garde technique enables Hayes to distill his own interactions with nature to evoke a sense of relatedness within the viewer. He crafts each artwork to present most powerfully his moments of discovery, allowing us to experience the natural world in a new way. For Hayes’s images “speak” with ancient voices, profoundly connecting us to our primal past. In turn, we are reintroduced to who we are, where we are, what we are – of the earth.