Artist Biography

Donté K. Hayes graduated summa cum laude from Kennesaw State University at Kennesaw, Georgia with a BFA in Ceramics and Printmaking with an art history minor. Donté received his MA and MFA with honors from the University of Iowa and is the 2017 recipient of the University of Iowa Arts Fellowship. Donté is the 2019 winner of the 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern art from the Gibbes Museum of Art. Hayes is also a 2019 Ceramics Monthly Magazine Emerging Artists and Artaxis Fellow. He is the Grand Prize winner of the “Coined in the South: 2022” exhibition at the Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina. Donté also received the prestigious Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Grant Award in 2022. His artwork has been presented at the 1-54 art fair, London, England, Design Miami, Florida, and a solo presentation at the 2021 Armory Show art fair in New York City. Hayes work is included in the permanent collections of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul, Minnesota, Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane, New Orleans, Louisiana, The Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Texas, Newark Museum of Art, Newark, New Jersey, Wellin Museum of Art, Clinton, New York, Stanley Museum of Art, Iowa City, Iowa, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California, Gardiner Museum, Toronto, Canada and the Institute Museum of Ghana, Accra, Ghana among others. Hayes has been in residence at MacDowell, Peterborough, New Hampshire, Bemis Center, Omaha, Nebraska, Township 10, Marshall, North Carolina, Penland School of Craft, Penland, North Carolina, Hambidge Center, Rabun Gap, Georgia, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, Maine, Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts, Newcastle, Maine, The Peninsula School of Art, Fish Creek, Wisconsin and in 2023 at Kennesaw State University as a Windgate Fellow. Donté K. Hayes is represented by Mindy Solomon Gallery in Miami, Florida.