Transient Curated is pleased to present Clear Boundaries, a series of works from Hayden Clay's The Suburbs. The works interpose stained glass onto common boundaries, including fences, guard rails and traffic cones, bringing translucency to objects meant to impose barriers.
Hayden Clay’s ‘The Suburbs’ series brings a surrealist flair to otherwise mundane aspects of middle American environments. Captured in the immaculate condition only possible through 3D modeling and immense attention to textures, the yards are perfect cubes, the water is crystal clear, and the sky looks like a Truman Show backdrop.
While every external cue suggests that the scenes are bright and optimistic, after looking a little longer, an ominous sense begins to set in. These suburbs are empty. A swings rock back and forth without anyone on it, the streets around the houses have no pedestrians, and apart from color, the houses are nearly all alike. With their right angles and rich textures the scenes appear perfect, but if you look underneath they are too perfect.
In the third chapter from The Suburbs, Clay shares Clear Boundaries. The artist replaces fences, traffic cones, and other barriers with stained glass, bringing translucency to objects meant to impose barriers. The shadows cast through the glass are glossy and beautiful, pristine with their lack of passersby.
By replacing these objects with stained glass Clay also questions their practical use in his unique vision of a neighborhood. A glass guardrail would not help a car that’s veering off the road. In removing their original use they are left as ornaments, another object that defies any reality other than the one in this strange, empty mirror of our world.
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