ABOUT THE ARTIST

Jo Hay is a contemporary British American portrait painter. Born in 1964 in Newcastle Upon-Tyne, England, she received her BA from Middlesex University, London, UK in 1983 and her MFA from the New York Academy of Art, New York, NY in 2012.

Hay received the Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed Foundation Grant 2010 sponsored in part by the Provincetown Art Association and Museum and was the recipient of the New York Academy of Art Portrait Scholarship 2011. Her portrait from the Benders series entitled Dodger was a semi-finalist in the BP Portrait Award 2015 at the National Gallery in London and was a finalist in Art For Freedom A Global Initiative curated by Madonna.

Hay was a subject of the documentary She is Juiced by British director Lois Norman. It was screened at Tate Modern in 2017 as part of the ground-breaking Queer Britain exhibition and the London Pride launch 2017. 

In 2017 Hay began the ongoing project titled Persisters, large-scale portrait paintings representing contemporary, trailblazing women in their pursuit of justice. In 2019, a solo exhibition of the Persisters series was shown at The Provincetown Commons. Her portraits of Senator Elizabeth Warren and Vice President Kamala Harris were exhibited in the Provincetown Art Association and Museum in 2020 and 2021 respectively. In February 2022 Hay was selected as the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod’s inaugural Artist of the Year.

Hay currently lives and works in Provincetown MA.