Hayley Zena

I’ve been having troubles with learning how to actually rest so that I don’t repeat the 🕸️ boom and bust 🕸️ cycle.
Here are a few pieces of advice from kind friends that may help you too 🪲

On the Tableland

Tracing the Rupture panel discussion 🕸️ these conversations were personal, interwoven, ruminative and I can’t thank the artists enough for allowing this kind of engagement

Curatorial debut at 🧚🏼‍♀️

I’ve had the pleasure to work with a brilliant group of artists and .yan to give this concept life

More brooding plus a cute fit and haircut 🕸️🧚🏼‍♀️

Broody month 🪶🪐

Little interview in the InSight magazine for work 🥹🧚🏼‍♀️

Double exposures of surrounding Ngurra 🦎

Crinkle Bush: Creating an inventory of flora in our backyard. A part of the Sclerophyll forest and woodlands we now live amongst 🧚🏼‍♀️

• Lomatia Silaifolia • Protiaccas native to the east • Under story shrub • Sandstone soils • Has greatly benefited from recent long periods of rain • More likely to flower and generate insect interest

Full moon • Chester Trail • Field research is expanding into dusk

On unceded Gundungurra and Dharug Ngurra (country). Every day is different here and the landscape seems ever moving. Looking into the bush most afternoons has given me such a sense of place.

PSA: Altitude Program • has a brilliant exhibition opportunity for artists • curators • collectives • artist groups • working across a plethora of LGAs • Blacktown City • Blue Mountains City • Camden Council • Campbelltown City • City of Canterbury Bankstown • Cumberland Council • Fairfield City • Hawkesbury City • Liverpool City • City of Parramatta • Penrith City • Hills Shire • Wollondilly Shire

Visual artists working in all mediums are encouraged to apply. I recommend coming in to see the space (because it’s worth it), and I’ll be here if you have any queries 🧚🏼‍♀️

• Flat Rock Formations • Sandstone, Shale, Siltstone, Old Man Banksia, Tortula Muralis(?) blackened and wriggling into the cracks.

• Dry Sclerophyll Forest • Gnarled Banksias dotted with lichen. Blanketed by the dried pine needles, Yorkshire Fog reaching out below, velvet to the touch.

Since our wedding at the end of May, life has been relentless. The World was my 2022 tarot and I only now can I see what it meant. New job opportunities, living in a different region, adjusted priorities, refreshed point of view. Life got fast forwarded and we’re just happy to be here 🧚🏼‍♀️🧚🏼‍♀️

1. Burnt planners and lists
2. Sunset from Lincoln Rock
3. Remy the mountain cat
4. Cold swim in Wentworth Falls
5. Fireplace helpers
6. The few plants I brought with us
7. Water: Presence and Absence, at BMCC
8. Happy me at work
9. Lost Song, at BMCC
10. Remy watching the carnage of ripping out brambles, honeysuckle and jasmine

Kunzea Capitata: Creating an inventory of flora in our backyard. A part of the Sclerophyll forest and woodlands we now live amongst 🧚🏼‍♀️

Thank you for helping me identify 💚

Kunzea: Creating an inventory of flora in our backyard. A part of the Sclerophyll forest and woodlands we now live amongst 🧚🏼‍♀️

Sundew: Creating an inventory of flora in our backyard. A part of the Sclerophyll forest and woodlands we now live amongst 🧚🏼‍♀️

Large Tongue Orchid: Creating an inventory of flora in our backyard. A part of the Sclerophyll forest and woodlands we now live amongst 🧚🏼‍♀️

Infinite Senses: I will be presenting a lil mural at .artgarage in ’s curatorial debut in Sydney this Friday 🕸 So lovely to be exhibiting alongside 💚

🥀🕸: even with a small luggage allowance, I couldn’t resist

Treadwells: I had been looking forward to this day for years. is a kind, warm, gentle space full of wild and esoteric knowledge. Thank you for making me feel held without knowing it. This visit has only increased my desire of more learning 🔮✨🧙🏻‍♀️🧚🏼‍♀️🕸

🕸Spellwork in situ in The Cranny 📸:

🕸Spellwork in situ in The Cranny 📸:

Spellwork Sigils: An experiment in vulnerability and letting go of expectations
• ‘Intuitive Sigil #4’, acrylic and charcoal, 18”x16”, $120.

Spellwork Sigils: An experiment in vulnerability and letting go of expectations
• ‘Intuitive Sigil #3’, acrylic and charcoal, 24”x24”, $160.

Mono-Lithic Communication: 🪨🕸🕷

Extending the concept of Lith as a rock formation, come language, come extension of bodily self.

Inspired by stone formations of old times and old ways. How they are a community made extensions of self and identity.

The limb, the Lith, the arm, the extension.
From brain to text. In the simplest of forms and avenues, extension of self and all of your internalised constructs.

SPELLWORK: in The Cranny, till July 17th 🕸
A truly physical effort with short turn around, this show has helped me break through my artist’s block. I’m exhausted but feeling a sense of relief. The collection of paintings in Spellwork are raw, unplanned and in some parts cringe for me. They hold a certain vulnerability that makes me proud and embarrassed. But that’s where I’ve found an element of potency, and what I’ll use as a foundation to continue exploring

SPELLWORK: ‘The initial intention of this body of work was to break through the artist’s block I had been experiencing since the first lockdowns and the loss of my communal studio in Marrickville. They have since morphed into a potent collection of sigils and spellwork.

Like Norse-Germanic Runes and Celtic Ogham, sigils are a visual language aimed at communion with the divine. Sigils however are a personal language developed from a word, sentence or intention, and condensed into a potent symbol.

These sigils are a natural extension of the frustration and anger I felt at having artist’s block. The symbols and linework mirror my determination and intention to breaking through this barrier with my body tracing lines and creating a language to speak to the divine creative. The energy and fluid automatism from my hand to the canvas is what creates their potency in regards to their spellwork. This is a very personal collection of paintings, created in a short time frame, harnessing the energy and forced dynamism of my body, examining intention and output.’