People Seen, Places Been

May 30 to July 11, 2026




















Cuervo, Bacardi, Comics, 2024

Artist's statement

My work continues oil painting’s tradition of depicting people, places, and things observed from everyday life. I try to capture our authentic, often flawed reality; something I don’t think we see enough of in our filtered, image based world. Much of my practice is based in figurative art and Western Art History, often concerning myself with questions of representation and narrative. I often direct the gaze of my figures back at the viewer as a way to give acknowledgement and power to the figures. I also explore the relationships between objects, our environments, and each other. How there can be deep personal connections to the inanimate or the subtle social, political, and cultural undertones signified by these relationships. This is where places from everyday life combine with images from pop culture and art history. My work often exists on a life size or larger scale. This both continues the historical dialogue of elevating scenes from everyday life, and emphasizes the subject's importance.

 

I’m often drawn to people and places that are overlooked or deemed “unimportant” by those with money and power. I grew up in the suburbs outside of Rochester, NY. Disconnected from a culture other than the homogenous consumerist sprawl, and as a result my work often deals with otherness and a lack of belonging. I also have a deep interest in cultural exchange. How an object from China ends up in a Western New York kitchen next to objects from France, India, and South Africa. This also extends to the people that surround us. Many of my paintings feature other artists, musicians, designers, models, all from the Rochester, NY area. Picturing an environment and the people in it is picturing a community. 

 

Painting’s illusion of life holds potential to connect with others, if not through likeness then as a physical place to consider “an other”. Paradoxically, painting also creates distance from a measurable reality and can hint at its own creation. I often find value in these formal elements of painting; specifically color, mark making, and pattern. Combined with flat areas of color, visible brushstrokes, and areas the illusion falls apart, the paintings become more obvious interpretations of life. 

About the artist

Haley Indorato is an artist from Rochester, NY, currently pursuing her MFA at the University of Georgia in Athens, GA. In 2022, she received her BFA from Rochester Institute of Technology, afterwards participating in a residency at the New York Academy of Art. Indorato’s work has been selected for competitive juried shows, including the 68th and 69th Juried Finger Lakes Exhibition at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, Made in NY here at the Schweinfurth Art Center in 2025, and at the Genesee Valley Council of the Arts in Mt. Morris. She has also frequently participated in many group shows at places like The Yards in Rochester, Hallwalls in Buffalo, and has started exhibiting in Georgia as well. This includes juried shows at ATHICA and the Lyndon House, as well as the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art in Augusta.

 

Indorato’s work combines subjects and themes traditional to oil painting with images from the internet and popular culture. Fantasies and desires to escape are coupled with imitations of people, places, and things from real life. Physical, virtual, spanning time and geography. Indorato is interested in oil painting’s complicated past as a means to reflect on and escape the absurdity of everyday American life. In her research towards her MFA, she often appropriates old stories and twists them into a feminist lens; gender bending characters, and replacing expectations of a passive woman with strong, domineering female figures. Her work is simultaneously humorous and sincere in an effort to reflect contemporary life and offer a place for human connection.