Corey Hayman

is a Coventry-based artist whose practice interrogates race, gender and social identity through a deliberately wide range of media — text, books, video and performance. Born in Coventry in 1990 and a graduate of Coventry University (2012), she has become one of the more distinctive voices to emerge from the West Midlands’ contemporary art ecology in the 2010s. Her work sits at the intersection of conceptual art, identity politics and material-led research, and it rewards close attention to both its form and its framing.

Key Takeaways

• Hayman’s practice centres on her lived experience of racial and social identity, using found materials and subject matter that resonate emotionally and carry what she describes as an “authoritative demeanour.”
• She works across text, books, video and performance, choosing form according to subject matter rather than settling into a single signature medium.
• Her recognition includes the Karen Trusselle Prize (2012) and the New Art West Midlands Bursary and Runners-Up Prize (2013).
• Her limited-edition publications — Studies for my Father (pamphlet) and Don’t Worry… I’m an Artist (book) — are collectible works in their own right, not mere documentation.
• She has shown within the New Art West Midlands exhibition framework, a regional platform selected in 2016 by Sonia Boyce, John Stezaker and Katharine Stout.

Statement and Conceptual Framework

Hayman’s own statement is unusually direct about her starting point: as a Black female artist, she understands the marginalisation that position entails, and her practice tends to focus on her affiliation with, and experience of, racial and social identity. This is not identity as a decorative theme but as a structural condition that shapes how work is made, seen and circulated.

Two ideas recur in her framing:

• Primary experience. Her work is “borne out of primary experiences with found materials/subject matter” — meaning the raw material is encountered, not invented, and it resonates emotionally before it is rationalised.
• Authoritative demeanour. The found material holds, in her mind, an authority of its own. The artist’s job is less to impose meaning than to negotiate with what the material already asserts.

At the core of her process — despite decisions around appropriation, visual potency and curatorial prowess — lies the concept, which she treats as “immensely important” and “tirelessly thought through.” The result, she suggests, is a depth in which “the conversation surrounding the visual element becomes highly inclusive within the engagement of the work.” In plain terms: the thinking is meant to be legible in the encounter, not hidden behind it.

This places Hayman in a lineage that runs through British conceptual and post-conceptual practice — the tradition of artists for whom the idea and the object are inseparable — while also connecting to a broader international conversation about Black subjectivity in contemporary art. Readers wanting context on that wider field can consult the Wikipedia overview of contemporary art and the entry on conceptual art.

Form Follows Subject: Text, Books, Video, Performance

Hayman’s statement is explicit that “the form of Hayman’s work varies, depending on the subject matter, adapting and developing appropriately.” That is a methodological commitment, not indecision. It means the medium is chosen because it does a specific job.

• Text allows her to work at the speed of thought and to address the viewer directly, without the mediation of an image.
• Books and pamphlets give the work duration and intimacy — a reader holds it, returns to it, and it circulates beyond the gallery.
• Video introduces time, voice and the body, useful when the subject is performance of identity or the gap between how something is said and how it is seen.
• Performance puts the artist’s own presence into the frame, which is often the point when the subject is the experience of being looked at.

For artists and students reading this, the practical lesson is worth stating plainly: choosing a medium is a curatorial decision about audience and duration. Ask what the work needs — a wall, a shelf, a screen, a room, a body — and let that answer dictate the form. Hayman’s range is a model of that discipline rather than a scattergun approach.

Selected Works

• Innocence of the Image (2012)
• Swimming While Black (2014)
• Studies for my Father (2014)

Swimming While Black is the title that has travelled furthest and is the clearest example of Hayman’s method: a phrase that is simultaneously everyday and loaded, carrying a history of racialised exclusion from public space and leisure while remaining, on its face, a simple description. That double register — plain speech that opens onto structural critique — is characteristic of her titling and of the work’s conceptual engine.

Studies for my Father exists both as a work and as a limited-edition pamphlet, which is a useful reminder that in Hayman’s practice the publication is not a souvenir of the artwork. It is the artwork, or one of its forms.

Biography and Recognition

• Born: Coventry, 1990.
• Education: Coventry University, graduating 2012.
• 2012: Awarded the Karen Trusselle Prize.
• 2013: Awarded the New Art West Midlands Bursary and Runners-Up Prize.
• Lives and works: Coventry.

The trajectory matters for anyone tracking regional careers. Coventry has its own art infrastructure — the university, the city’s gallery and studio networks, and its proximity to Birmingham — and Hayman’s decision to remain based there rather than relocate to London is part of a wider pattern among West Midlands artists who build sustainable practices within the region.

Sales, Editions and Commissions

Hayman’s commercial offer is deliberately narrow and edition-based:

• Limited Edition Publications: Studies for my Father (pamphlet) and Don’t Worry… I’m an Artist (book).
• Works for sale and commissions: by direct contact with the artist.
• Contact: www.coreyhayman.weebly.com

For collectors, limited-edition artist publications occupy a specific niche. They are typically more affordable than unique works, they are finite by definition, and they carry the artist’s conceptual intent in a form that can be lived with. When considering any artist edition, it is worth establishing a few things before you buy:

Consideration	What to establish
Edition size	How many were produced, and how many remain available
Signing and numbering	Whether each copy is signed and numbered by the artist
Condition	Whether it is stored and handled as a collectible, not a reading copy
Provenance	Whether it was acquired from the artist, a gallery or a publisher
Documentation	Whether the work is recorded in the artist’s own archive

None of these are unique to Hayman — they are the standard questions for any editioned work — but they are especially relevant when the edition is the primary artwork rather than a reproduction of one.

Exhibition Context: New Art West Midlands

Hayman’s profile is bound up with the New Art West Midlands exhibition, the annual selected showcase of West Midlands graduates that takes place at venues across the region between February and May each year. The 2016 edition ran 12 February – 15 May and featured work by 43 artists, selected by Sonia Boyce, John Stezaker and Katharine Stout — a selection panel combining a major figure in British Black art and curation, a leading British collage and photomontage artist, and a senior curator’s eye. Being selected by that panel is itself a signal of critical standing.

The region’s commercial showcase, the SALON exhibition, ran 13 November – 23 December 2015 at the Waterhall Gallery, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, presenting contemporary art for sale. Together these two frameworks — one selective and graduate-facing, one market-facing — describe the ecosystem in which an artist like Hayman builds a reputation in the West Midlands.

For context on the institutions and figures involved, see the Wikipedia entries on Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery and on the artist Sonia Boyce.

How to Read (and Collect) Work Like This

Conceptual, text-led and identity-focused practice can be daunting if you are more used to painting or sculpture. A few practical approaches:

• Start with the title. In Hayman’s work the title is often the entry point, not a label. Read it as part of the piece.
• Ask what the material is doing. Her found materials carry their own history. Where did this come from, and what does it already mean before the artist touched it?
• Notice the form. If the work is a book, read it as a book. If it is a performance, the liveness is the content.
• Separate the concept from the craft. Both matter, but in this tradition the concept is not optional garnish — it is the load-bearing structure.
• For acquisitions, ask about editions and documentation. See the table above.

The trade-off is real: work that prioritises concept over immediate visual seduction can be harder to live with and harder to resell than a striking canvas. The counter-argument — and the reason institutions and serious collectors acquire it — is that it holds up to repeated looking and thinking in a way that purely decorative work does not.

Where Hayman Sits in the Wider Conversation

Hayman’s practice belongs to a generation of British artists for whom questions of race, gender and representation are not a special subject but the ground on which all work is made. Her insistence on primary experience, on the authority of found material, and on the concept as the organising principle places her alongside peers working in text, publication and performance across the UK.

Her Coventry base is also significant. The West Midlands has, over the past decade, developed a genuinely distinct contemporary art scene — supported by platforms like New Art West Midlands, by the region’s universities, and by its museums and galleries — and artists like Hayman are part of why that scene has a voice of its own rather than being a satellite of London.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Corey Hayman?

Corey Hayman is a British artist born in Coventry in 1990. She studied at Coventry University, graduating in 2012, and continues to live and work in Coventry. Her practice focuses on racial and social identity, working across text, books, video and performance.

What themes does Corey Hayman’s work address?

Her work centres on her experience and affiliation with racial and social identity, approached from the position of a Black female artist. It is built from primary experiences with found materials and subject matter that resonate emotionally and carry their own authority, with the underlying concept treated as the most important element of the work.

What awards has Corey Hayman received?

She was awarded the Karen Trusselle Prize in 2012, and the New Art West Midlands Bursary and Runners-Up Prize in 2013.

What publications has Corey Hayman produced?

She has produced two limited-edition publications: Studies for my Father (a pamphlet) and Don’t Worry… I’m an Artist (a book). Both are available as editions, and enquiries about works for sale and commissions should be directed to the artist.

How can I buy or commission a work by Corey Hayman?

Works for sale and commissions are handled directly by the artist. Her contact and further information are available at www.coreyhayman.weebly.com.

Where has Corey Hayman exhibited?

Her work has been shown within the New Art West Midlands exhibition framework, the annual selected showcase of West Midlands graduates held at venues across the region between February and May. The 2016 edition, which featured 43 artists, was selected by Sonia Boyce, John Stezaker and Katharine Stout. She has also been associated with the region’s market-facing SALON exhibition at the Waterhall Gallery, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.