In her paintings and sculptures, Hayley Tompkins seeks to explore and expand paints’ application as a transformative tool. Often modest in scale, Tompkins’ energetic works are born from an experimental approach rooted in the navigation between intent and spontaneity. Soaked in paint, the works’ surfaces remain unpredictable as they accrue swaths of fluorescent color, and layers of brushstrokes that develop from both free-form associations, and distilled calculated interventions.

Hayley Tompkins (b. 1971, Leighton Buzzard) lives and works in Glasgow. She employs photography, painting and film to re-examine the everyday, asking us to look and look again. In her painted works she often rhythmically details and patterns various objects, from mallets and branches to shirts, sunglasses and chairs – refreshing and energising the mundane.

Selected solo exhibitions include: ‘Tell Gonzo How’, Matthew Brown, Los Angeles (2023); ‘Far’, Fruitmarket, Edinburgh (2022); ‘After a Long Sleep, It Woke Up’, The Modern Institute, Osborne Street, Glasgow (2020); ‘Bag of rainbow’, Recent Activity, Birmingham (2020); ‘Stick crystals to paintings’, Bonner Kunstverein (2018); ‘Myth Cart’, Jupiter Artland (2016); Lulu, Mexico City (2016); ‘Electric Magnetic Installation’, The Modern Institute, Aird’s Lane, Glasgow (2015); The Common Guild, Glasgow (2014); ‘Space Kitchen’, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen (2013); ‘Currents’, Studio Voltaire, London (2011); ‘A Piece of Eight’, The Modern Institute, Osborne Street, Glasgow (2011); ‘Autobuilding’, Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (2009); ‘Re’, The Drawing Room, London (2008); and ‘Transfer’ (with Sue Tompkins) Spike Island, Bristol (2007). Tompkins represented Scotland at The 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. Selected group shows include: ‘Bright colours falsely seen’, Robert Heald Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand (2024); ‘Toil’, Croy Nielsen, Vienna (2024); ‘Papertrail’, Matthew Brown, Los Angeles (2023); ‘Sabrina’, Sim Smith, London (2022); Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles (2022); Hollybush Gardens, London (2021); ‘Particularities’, X Museum, Beijing (2021); ‘Breaking the Mould: Sculpture by Women since 1945’, Arts Council Collection Touring Exhibition (2021); ‘I Know Where I'm Going - Who Can I Be Now’, The Modern Institute, Osborne Street, Glasgow (2021); ‘Chips and Egg’, The Sunday Painter, London (2019); ‘Katinka Bock, Esther Kläs, Helen Mirra, Hayley Tompkins’, Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London (2019); ‘Drawing Biennial 2019’, Drawing Room, London (2019); ‘Jahresgaben 2018’, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (2018); ‘Portrait (for a Screenplay) of Beth Harmon’, Tenderpixel, London (2017), British Art Show 8 (2015-2016); ‘The Persistence of Objects’, Lismore Castle Arts curated by the Common Guild (2015); ‘Painting in Time’, The Tetley, Leeds (2015), ‘Every Day’, Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow (2013); ‘The Imminence of Poetics’, Sao Paolo Biennale, Sao Paolo (2012) and ‘Watercolour’, Tate Britain, London (2011).