Hayden Stern

Tending

Oil on canvas panel

"Most of my portrait subjects are psychiatric survivors. I instruct them to pose somewhere they feel safe, and if they have a beloved human or animal, I ask them to pose together. My subjects have autonomy over how they position their bodies and what they wear (autonomies not granted in institutions). The cornerstone of my work is nurturance - we who have survived the unsurvivable learn to care for each other. My subjects pose tenderly with other humans, their pets, and hallucinatory creatures. Our society narrativizes madness as self absorbed; my subjects refuse this designation."

– Hayden Stern

About the artist

Hayden Stern

I am a painter living and working in unceded Duwamish Territories (Seattle, Washington, USA).

My work examines madness, survivorship, and intimacy in fat, trans, and disabled communities. This portraiture explores the power of art to rewrite narratives about powerlessness, trauma, and embodiment.

I fell in love with acrylic and oil painting in high school art class and continued that passion through multiple years of involuntary institutionalization.

My work has been shown at multiple venues in Seattle, the greater US, and abroad, and my first solo show, The Trans Tarot, opened in September 2019 at Push/Pull Seattle.