REBECCA HAYES

To truly appreciate art, one must understand that beauty is dependent upon perspective. My greatest wish is for my art to be an example of this. I realized this fact as I came to live with and eventually accept the conditions of my limited eyesight. 

As a child, I developed an unfortunate vision disability that greatly altered my sight, blurring details that would seem obvious to the normal-functioning eye. Although this disability has hindered many everyday qualities of my life like driving and reading, I am optimistic towards the fleeting fortune of a unique perspective. This way, the world that I see is unique to me, allowing me to find beauty in a unique way. 

Through my work, I try to create otherwise normal scenery through my gaze, personalizing them completely. Whether it be painted on canvas or drawn on a screen, the goal is for enjoyers of my work to--only for a second--see past the initial grief of my disability, and instead, be allowed to see the beauty of my partial blindness and the unyielding passion that I have for art.

As an artist that has an altered observation of typical "beauty", I tend to reject popular notions that would normally be utilized within the field. Color-theory, for example, is a rule that I sometimes stray from, finding a mixture of obscure color palates to better represent the subjectiveness of perspective--this subjectiveness being something that I have grown to understand well. Making work that conveys my sometimes unbearable limitations of distance, as well as the exaggerated hues and blurs of colors, is why I create art. I produce art not just to reveal my own struggles with my vision, but also to celebrate the quiet perseverance of artists with visual impairments who find clarity and purpose in the process of creating art.