Ro2 Art is proud to present Myth, a solo exhibition featuring new works by artist Hayley Quentin. The show will run from February 16 through March 16, 2019. The opening reception will be held Saturday, February 16, from 7-10 p.m. at Ro2 Art Gallery’s Cedars neighborhood location at 1501 S. Ervay St. Dallas, TX 75215.

Hayley Quentin employs unique elements such as heavily saturated colors, varied application styles, and differing thicknesses in order to delicately walk the line between believability and enchantment. Quentin’s exhibition Myth features paintings that challenge the traditional conventions applied to male beauty through flushed skin, an intimate color palette, and body language that conveys a delicate vulnerability. She aims to equate the pleasure of looking at men with the pleasure of painting in order for them to come together to create paintings that evoke even more pleasure.

I paint calm male nudes bathing in quinacridone reds and French Ultramarine blues; of light fleshy pinks, cool grays, and saturated cadmium orange. My paintings are a vision of pomegranate stained lips, flushed cheeks, and impossibly red hands resting along a painterly surface. Simply, I like to look at men, recreate the pleasure of looking with the pleasure of painting, perhaps conflate the two, and then multiply this yet again when the viewer takes pleasure in looking at the paintings. I want the viewer to feel compelled to look. I want to create something so beautiful that they can’t look away. My paintings are an elaborate myth of depth, and I find it very appealing to have signifiers of this illusion- overly saturated colors, changes in the thickness of paint, changes in application of paint. Taken on their own, each element or representation could be believable, if only for a moment. I want to rest right on the edge between illusion, believability, just on the cusp breaking the spell.

Hayley Quentin was born in Los Angeles and attended Otis College of Art and Design, receiving a B.F.A. cum laude in 2008. After graduation she spent 7 years living and working in the UK and France before returning to Los Angeles in 2016. Hayley's paintings challenge the conventional representation of male beauty and eroticism in art. Working primarily in oils, she repurposes traditional art making processes to create a lens through which the viewer sees the painted body.

Hayley has exhibited both nationally and internationally including Lava Projects, CB1 Gallery, Big Pictures Los Angeles, and Soft.Core in Los Angeles, Ro2 Art in Dallas, and Musee d’Art Contemporain de Lyon (in collaboration with Juliacks) in France. Her work has been featured in various art publications, including Create Magazine, Polluxzine, and Full Blede. Hayley lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.