Hot Coffee with New York-based artist Clarity Haynes, who never shies away from controversy

Clarity Haynes is a force of nature, an honest warrior for naked truth when it comes to gender identities and multiple normative red tapes surrounding them. The ongoing exhibition at New Discretions in Chelsea titled Portals is a provocative, somewhat confrontational presentation of the artist’s engagement with the institution of childbirth and how we think about it. Known for her Breast/Chest Portrait Project Haynes continues to confront the viewer with bolder questions about our origins. As part of this interview I asked Clarity also about the book, her first monograph, that has launched on March 9 as part of the show.

Nina: Imagine you are in your favorite coffee or tea spot. Where is it? What are you drinking? What are the three things you see right now?

Clarity Haynes: I love drinking coffee and sitting with my dog, people-watching, or being in nature. I try to sit outside if possible when drinking my coffee, and take a moment to just be.

Installation view. Clarity Haynes: Portals, New Discretions, February 29-April 13. 2024. Photo courtesy of the artist and the gallery.

Nina: Please tell me more about your ongoing solo show “Portals" at New Discretions.  As part of this exhibition, you are launching a book. What prompted this publication and how were you initially drawn into the radical, almost confrontational representation that is at the center of this new body of work?

Clarity: I'm excited about this exhibition because it inaugurates New Discretions’ new space in Chelsea. Benjamin Tischer, the founder of New Discretions, has been operating independently as a curator and dealer since he closed Invisible Exports in 2018. We work very well together, and the timing was perfect to present my new body of work in this new space.

The paintings were all made in the past four years, and they delve into the concept of the portal and birth. I began working with these themes during the lockdown. The pandemic was a time of isolation and intensity, and it makes sense that the work I started then was completely different from what was happening before.

The publication, my first monograph, surveys my painting practice over the past twenty-five years, although the most recent body of work is a major focus. I’m very proud of the writing in the book; it is truly brilliant and forward-thinking. Leah DeVun, Harry Dodge and Jeanne Vaccaro contribute creative insights into the work and visionary contextualizations within queer, trans, and feminist art history and culture.

Nina: Could you pick one work currently on view and zero in on it? What is it called? What influenced you when you were working on it? How does it relate to the queer and feminist aspects of your practice?

Clarity: I’d like to talk about one of the large crowning paintings, Big Birth III (J’s Birth). This piece imagines the birth of Jeanne Vaccaro, a curator, writer and friend (with whom I have a dialogue in the book). Her parents, who live near me, heard that I was painting birth and generously offered me a large printed photograph to use as a source. It is a glorious photograph her father took of her mother giving birth to her in 1981. The resulting painting is graphic and bloody, and in my mind it relates to classic paintings from art history such as Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Beheading Holofernes. At the same time, there is an element of camp in the work. The baby’s head, larger than life, seems to emerge right out of the picture plane.

Clarity Haynes, Big Birth III (J's Birth),2023. Oil on canvas, 70.5 x 60 in (179.1 x 152.4 cm). Photo courtesy of the artist and the gallery.

Nina: One powerful aspect of crowning when it takes place is about connecting to the lineage of all women who were there before you. What role did a spiritual lineage play for you as you were painting?

Clarity:I love that you felt that crowning connected you to other people who had given birth before you. That’s very powerful.

As a queer person whose work has always interrogated gender, I like to think about birth as something that people of many genders can participate in, not just women. There are many spiritual lineages in my work: artists who came before me, and artists working now that I am in conversation with. My personal experiences with spirituality exist outside of patriarchal religion. But I am also deeply inspired by the history of painting, which is full of all kinds of religious references. My life and work have been radically shaped by generations of feminist and LGBTQIA+ art, activism, and writing.

Clarity Haynes, Fire Altar, 2023. Oil on canvas. 58 x 58 x 1.5 in (147.3 x 147.3 x 3.8 cm).Photo courtesy of the artist and the gallery.