Auburn: Art on Main Gallery Flying by Hadiya Finley

The City of Auburn and the Auburn Arts Commission are pleased to present the art installation Flying by Hadiya Finley at Auburn’s Art on Main window-front gallery, on view July 17th – October 5th, 2026.

Artwork Statement:

“I have been fascinated with the female form, spending years practicing with live models and studying anatomy. I have felt great joy in producing figures in which the forms are softened and rounded yet express strength and energy. I have sought to embody my own feelings and experience as a female knowing both suppression and empowerment. My desires to nurture and to be nurtured through relationship and motherhood drive me to create art that expresses this not solely with form but in juxtaposition to objects and nature with metaphors and incorporating dolls, mechanics, birds, boats, wheels , furniture and natural forms of tree branches, shells or crystals and references to primitive art. I piece together materials or break apart and reconstruct the forms in semi-abstraction, or hybrid animal-human figures. My longtime practice with clay has resulted in an emphasis on sculpture, but I continue to draw, paint and collage, enjoying color in addition to the visceral qualities of numerous materials and the surprises brought about through experimentation. I have made animations to inform and augment sculptures. My sculptural pieces range from small figures cast into bronze to large resin and fiberglass, or paper mache suspended figures, carved or assembled wood shaped into intimate touchable pieces. I enjoy a good joke and like to make art that is playful and fun, yet even perhaps odd or off-putting. I have studied with and been influenced by many artists. Chaim Gross, encouraged me early in my career, a wise and gentle man who did not intimidate, and inspired me with his carvings of women in motion. George Herms influenced my use of found objects and detritus as valuable material for sculpture. I worked from models in Harriet Hochberg’s studio, a female artist, whose figure sculpture and teaching helped me hone my skills and consider ways of interpreting the figure, abstracting and simplifying forms to create expressive pieces. This was pushed further when, in graduate school, I came up against conceptualist critique. Stubbornly clinging to figuration, with the encouragement of Roland Reiss, I found ways to satisfy myself and this mindset, thus deepening my practice.” -Hadiya Finley

Flying
Hadiya Finley, 2026

Art on Main Gallery, One Main Street, Auburn, WA 98001

This gallery is viewable from the street 24 hours a day 7 days a week.