Hayden Clay: About

Bio

Hayden Clay is an American visual artist who creates 3D digital renders and analog double-exposure photographs that blur the line between dreams and reality,^,^, turning water, clouds, and suburban architecture into scenes of strange tranquility.^, He renders his 3D scenes with added grain and depth of field so they read closer to a film photograph or a watercolor painting than a typical digital render.

Clay's father is a watercolor painter but discouraged him from becoming an artist, so Clay studied biochemistry and then computer science before returning to art in his twenties. He began in film photography, buying a Canon AE-1 camera from a thrift store and experimenting with multiple exposures that combined light from different scenes. Unable to find a flooded tennis court to photograph in Maryland, he taught himself 3D rendering to create the scene instead, a shift that led to Summer Games.^,

Following a trip to Venice, he made World Underwater, a series of 3D renders imagining New York City overwhelmed by rising water, intended to raise awareness of climate change.^, His Swimwear series imagines clothing made of water, including Wet Laundry, made after he learned it takes 2,700 litres of water to produce a cotton T-shirt.^, In 2023 he released The Suburbs with Transient Labs, reimagining suburban houses, lawns, and streets, and the series sold out. That December, he contributed Checkerboard Sea to LVCIDIA's “3 Dimensional”, released alongside David Ariew and Stuz0r.^, He later made Strange Clouds, a series of clouds rendered in geometric form that he expanded into a generative collection of hundreds of variations.^, Within a newer series, Clear Boundaries, he renders stained glass into suburban structures such as a picket fence and a sidewalk.

Clay's work has been shown by Affenfaust Galerie in Hamburg and Artpoint in France, and he has exhibited in New York, Seoul, France, and Belgium. It has also appeared on public screens, including outdoor billboards through Artcrush Gallery and, during Earth Day in 2026, a screen at Piccadilly Circus in London.