Christina Hayes, James Monroe of Charleston, 2011, oil on linen, 56cm x 56cm
Referencing the old children’s prayer ‘If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take’, Christina Hayes presents a series of portraits that explore passages through geographies and phases of mortality. Local living pigeon fanciers who breed pigeons to fly and deliver long distance handwritten messages, such as those used during wartime, and characters who transmit messages through sea voyages, such as sailors, submariners and sea veterans, are the protagonists in this series. Fascinated by the historic methods of communication and the people who persevere with them, Hayes has captured a rare sort of people that dominate her imagination.
