Telling unvarnished tales in clay
- Donté draws inspiration from West African traditions, hip-hop culture and science fiction
- His pieces feature black and brown clays as well as unglazed porcelain
- He seeks to tell a story of adaptation, perseverance and renewal through art
Donté K. Hayes has been a professional artist since the age of 18. After working as an inker for a comic book company and a freelance designer for music artists, he studied at Kennesaw State University and gained a masters in fine arts at the University of Iowa. Donté creates hollow forms by coiling and pinching clay that he etches with thousands of repeated hatch marks. To do this, he uses a needle tool and techniques he honed in printmaking. “My ceramic sculptures function as future artifacts, abstract forms that may look like they are from the past but also the future,” he says. An avid researcher, he turns to history as a source of creativity. “I am particularly inspired by the African diaspora’s ability to adapt, remix and create new worlds,” he says. Donté’s work has been featured at the Armory Show in New York, Design Miami and 1-54 in London.
INTERVIEW
The first time I touched clay was in college, and only because I had to take a 3D medium class for my degree. I found something more powerful in clay than in printmaking or drawing. Clay allows me to connect deeply with both memory and transformation.
The first ceramic sculpture I made was Listen. It combined my research on Yoruba Ife heads from Nigeria with my interest in hip-hop culture. In it, a head wearing headphones feeds into the base, which is an 1980s style boombox. It represents the connection between ancestral voices and contemporary sound.
I keep it real. Everything is unglazed. You can hide a lot of things with glaze, but in the way I make my work, you cannot hide anything. There are no cracks because I take my time and I wait. The material itself is the power and the illumination. I live my life like my work. There is no mask and I do not pretend.
My favourite piece is always the one I am currently working on. When I create, I enter a meditative state where I am fully present with the material. I make one sculpture at a time, without breaks, allowing the process to guide me. Each piece becomes a ritual of discovery and a story of perseverance and renewal.
