Create! Magazine is pleased to present the next installment of our Women Working in the Arts series interviewing Ellie Hayworth. She is the Founder of Hayworth, a strategic consultancy committed to promoting intrepid ideas at the intersection of art and design. We hope you enjoy her inspiring story and make sure to visit her booth at Untitled Art Fair if you’ll be in town for Miami Art Week!

Can you give us a synopsis of your career path in the arts thus far? How did you get your start in the industry?

After interning at several esteemed Chelsea galleries while pursuing a Masters in Art Business with the Sotheby’s Institute, I began a career in the marketing, public relations, and communications sector for the contemporary art world. Having learned valuable skills and executed several meaningful PR campaigns with these agencies, I experienced a growing desire to work more closely, if not directly with the artists themselves, assisting in the crafting of their messaging, the documentation of their practice, and the cultivation of curatorial opportunities to present their work.

I founded my company, Hayworth, with these principles at our core. We evolved from a strictly PR and communications-based firm to encompass artist management, pop-up exhibitions, curatorial consulting, and cultural programming including speaking engagements. We now represent and collaborate with a growing roster of artists in addition to architects and designers, partnering on a wide range of projects including exhibitions.

Tell us about what prompted the founding of Hayworth. In what ways has the business grown since its inception?

I was born and raised in Coral Gables, Florida surrounded by a local community that has always embraced arts and culture but was not entrenched in a dogmatic approach to the arts. I was also fortunate to be raised in a family that supported entrepreneurial vision and encouraged me to pursue my dreams, whatever they may be. After studying art history and communications at Vanderbilt University and earning a Masters of Art Business at SIA, I was hungry to learn as much about the art market through mentorship and experience, but I knew I would soon be ready to move beyond entrenched business models that existed in the art market to date.

As a burgeoning collector myself, I have always been committed to supporting the work of living artists. Founding Hayworth was a response to stated needs from my early clients, namely artists who were energized by the prospect of striking out independently and working with Hayworth as a collaborator and strategic partner.

We were thrilled to hear about your participation at the upcoming Untitled Art Fair in Miami this December. What is it like to be included in the new 'Nest' section that the fair is debuting? For you, what sets the Untitled fair apart from all of the others that occur simultaneously?

The art world is not always receptive to hybrid business models, which underscores how profoundly grateful we are for the opportunity to exhibit with Untitled this December during Miami Art Week.

Participation in the Nest section both underscores that hybrid art models are on the raise and that we are, in fact, at the advent of a new market shift. It also posits a welcome challenge for me — we are indeed at the beginning of a long career, one that I hope will see Hayworth’s program mature as we matriculate from fledgling to mid-market and ultimately established alongside our artists. I never, however, want to fall victim to stagnation. I welcome the opportunity to always look at each new project as a chance to innovate and try something fresh and new.

Untitled has distinguished itself for its 10 years of operation as a premiere, curator-driven fair. The presentations exhibited at Untitled are international in scope and cutting edge in terms of their execution. As a collector myself, I’ve acquired esteemed pieces from the fair, which personally underscores the quality and the prescience of the work exhibited.

Which artists will you be presenting at Untitled? Can you give us a preview of what we can look forward to with regards to their work?

Hayworth will be presenting a three-artist booth featuring artists Suzy Kellems Dominik, Lans King, and Cassandra Zampini. The exhibition theme is loosely based on the concept of being a “digital native”.

Suzy’s new sculpture, I Survived You, is a scorched wooden sculpture that explores the artist’s origin story and trauma. The sculpture emanates a subtle neon light from holes arranged in the constellation of Scorpius inviting one to view what resides within. The sculpture will be accompanied by a limited edition print series featuring a poem that she describes as the emotional scaffolding of the work.

I’ve long admired Lans’ Hyperreality mixed media paintings, where he fuses digital screens directly into his paintings. They function as layered investigations into the lens through which we analyze life mediated by technology.

We’ve concluded the presentation with Cassandra’s DataMine artworks, a series that aims to stimulate introspection about the immediate and long-term effects of technology on the human condition. The artworks aggregate imagery of collective ritual — in this case the selfie — to interrogate the value systems, symbols, and gestures that have become, through mass repetition, normative in contemporary culture.

We will also be presenting a Special Project for the fair — artful public seating. Radical Semantics is a series of nine functional sculptures derived from a loaded pictorial vocabulary spanning from Bruce Conner to Ant Farm, the Michelin Man to Helmut Newton, John Hejduk to Michael Jordan. The chairs are designed by Caracas-based architects Atelier Caracas for Studio Boheme, a Miami-based design collective that commissions and produces the architects’ limited edition furniture collections.

What would you say is most exciting about these particular artists that you'll be exhibiting?

Each of the artists I’ve presented herein are strikingly contemporary and have their thumbs squarely on the pulse of contemporary society. Cassandra and Lans interrogate the implications of a world that is evolving more and more into a digitally-driven interface. While Lans explores the possibilities of a world beyond the physical, Cassandra calls attention to the potentially-problematic aspects of a digital-first world and the commodification of the self.

Suzy’s work is squarely rooted in human experience and she never fails to surprise or astound with her use of innovative media and her conceptually-laden intent. Her work is poignant, romantic, and charged — I’m always captivated by the complexity of her practice and the rigorous process she subjects herself to.

With Radical Semantics, I’m incredibly energized by the designs that Atelier Caracas envisions for the contemporary world. Their designs are steeped in familiar pop cultural tropes, but they elevate colloquial references to the same regard as some of the most distinguished architects and artists throughout

history. This somewhat “punk” and iconoclastic dialogue between high and low culture yields surprisingly refreshing forms. It is thanks to the critical eye and execution of Studio Boheme that these furniture collections have come to life.

All in all, I get a sense that the fair-going audience will also see the prescience and uniqueness of the works we’re exhibiting through Hayworth.

What other projects does Hayworth have on the horizon?

We are thrilled to be collaborating with The Digital, a generative art salon and panel series presented by ARTXCODE with support by Art Blocks and MoonPay. I’m quite enthusiastic about the future of digital and algorithmic art now that we’ve seen the market come alive. I’m quite passionate about the economic and creative opportunities afforded to artists through the application of blockchain technology.

Beyond the fair, we are pushing forward on new bodies of work by data-artist Josh Harlan and I contribute communications services to Powerhouse Arts, a platform for art production and employment in the arts.

In 2022, Hayworth will be involved in curating larger arts programs for hospitality projects and facilitating pop-up exhibitions across South Florida and New York. We’ll likely explore the possibility of exhibiting at other fairs as well.