About the Artist:
Hailey Harvey is a Houston-based mixed-media artist specializing in drawing and fiber arts. She received her Bachelor of Arts in both Studio Art and Psychology from Houston Christian University, her Master of Arts in Psychology from Houston Christian University, and is presently a Master of Fine Arts Candidate at Houston Christian University. From a young age, Hailey learned many traditional crafts such as needlepoint and crochet from her grandmother who unknowingly led her to pursue her passion for self-expression through creating. Hailey loves working with all mediums but has always been led back to incorporating thread within her works. In high school, she practiced the traditional processes of film photography and further experimented with embroidery on prints.
While working towards her BA, Hailey studied many mediums, typically charcoal drawings or clay sculpting where she focused on psychological processing. While still focusing on mental processes during her MFA program, she began to focus more on the drift between the conscious and unconscious and the reminiscence through memories. Her current work heavily depicts photo-realistic drawings of old film portraiture and ceramic vessels layered with fibers such as embroidery and crochet.
Hailey is a passionate artist committed to developing her work and learning all there is under the faculty, mentors, and colleagues at HCU until May of 2026 when she graduates. She is a daughter, a sister, and a friend who takes much inspiration from those around her.
Artist Statement:
My work focuses on making physical the ephemeral nature of memory and tradition. By blending various mediums, such as ceramics, charcoal, and embroidery, I create tactile and visual vessels that keep our memories from ever fading. My works allow us to find refuge in moments we wish to remember and protect, as well as memories that seem never to leave us.
Together, these materials intertwine, creating an alluring but unsettling narrative, where the viewer is invited into this space and encouraged to remember who we are and forget what has been lost. These vessels emotionally evoke a coexisting nature of comfort, yet pain, while physically containing softness and rigidity. They highlight the feeling of being grounded in familiarity while being led into the unknown, where intimacy and tension are tied and woven together as one.
These materialized memories allow for rumination and reflection of such nostalgic sensations that bring the past back to life. Through this lens, my work becomes a visual dialogue between the past and present, a way of recovering what is otherwise lost over the passage of time. Each work is a moment suspended in time, a delicate container of shared lived experiences, that preserve the identity and tradition we hold dear.