This exhibition will be the debut of Hayley Dayis' newest series of hand-foraged natural pigment paintings. For the past four years, Dayis has been living part of each year in the south of Colombia collecting colorful clays and soils, turning them into paints, and creating works that visually log her discoveries and studies related to Colombian land and history.

This new series, titled "Colombian Riches: a Story Told in Natural Pigments" is dedicated to celebrating the biodiversity of Colombia, and shedding light on various aspects of Colombian history which are inevitably inter-connected with the karmic cycle and fate of people all around the globe. Each piece focuses on one of Colombia's natural resources (such as flowers, bananas, or coca) that has been extracted for global export since the arrival of the Spanish in the 1500's. In many of her pieces, Dayis depicts the duality of extracting those resources from the land--the joy and nourishment that they often provide, and also the destruction and violence that their commercialization has incited.

As a citizen of the US living and painting in Colombia, Dayis' goal in painting this series was to explore the following questions: What does it mean to be curious and respectful of the land and people that contribute to our lifestyles in the United States? How are we already doing this/how could we improve? What stories about the origin of our food and products are rarely told? Where and by whom is the positive or negative impact of our daily choices as consumers felt? What lessons and wisdom can we learn from the Colombian people, plants, animals and minerals featured in this exhibition? How do these lessons and wisdoms transform the way we view our daily lives?