PROJECT ROOM :
PHIL HAYES

Exhibition Dates : 12 - 24 August 2025
Opening Reception : Wed 13 August 2025, 6:00 - 8:30pm

THE BOUNTY YEARS

Phil Hayes is an Australian artist whose diverse practice spans painting, printmaking, sculpture, and drawing. Since the early 1980s, he has exhibited nationally and internationally, with works held in public and private collections from Japan and the USA to Lithuania. Influenced by both Western and Asian popular culture, his 13 years living in Hong Kong helped shape a distinctive visual language, merging modernist structure with the bold energy of pop art.

A hallmark of Phil’s practice is his use of symbolic imagery, particularly the recurring figure of the ‘Dog’. Originally conceived in the late 1980s as a social commentary on Australian suburbia, it has evolved into an instantly recognisable motif, rich with layered meaning. Alongside his fine art career, Phil spent 18 years as an artist and designer in the global surf industry, working with prominent brands such as Rip Curl and Quiksilver. This experience deepened his connection to ocean culture and the visual language of commercial design.

Phil completed postgraduate studies at the University of Tasmania, later lecturing there for several years—a formative period that continues to shape his artistic vision. It was during his time in Hobart that he developed a deep and lasting fascination with the thylacine. More than an extinct species, the thylacine functions in his work as a potent symbol of loss, myth, and resilience within the Australian psyche. Over time, it has become a personal totem: part cautionary tale, part ghost story, part emblem of wildness lost. Through this lens, Phil explores themes of mythology, disappearance, memory, and the fragile boundary between nature and culture.

CATALOGUE